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Prepare to spill your popcorn over the person in front of you... (and if you're a bloke, don't even think of this as a date movie, because trust me, you'll be cowering behind your hands as much as your girlfriend).

Why?

Because a genuinely scary ride is what you're going to get in this fabulously eerie shocker from Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona.

However, before I tell you why The Orphanage is such a spine chiller, I want you take a deep breath, hold it, and now read - it's subtitled.

Yes, but don't you dare let that put you off. This is one film that'll make your flesh go cold and then, just for icing on the cake, make it crawl.

The fact that it has subtitles IN NO WAY detracts from the glorious sense of unease and horror that claws at you during its whole 106 minutes running time.

Especially since most of it comprises of lingering shots of darkened hallways and gloomy staircases.

There are no cleaved heads or dismembered bodies or scenes of sickening torture, because let's face it, we've been there, seen it, grossed out.

What makes this film so good at making the hairs stand up on the back of your neck is that its images will haunt you long after the film has finished (particularly if you're going back to an empty house, on your own, in the dark, and the wind is blowing...).

Anyway, enough of why you should go and see it - what's it all about?

Well, as the title suggests, it's about an orphanage; a dilapidated, deserted building that is now abandoned. Or rather, WAS abandoned, until a woman called Laura, a previous resident, returns with her new family to reopen it.

Her son Simon makes friends with an imaginary (or is that just a red herring?) friend, and bit by bit, starts to unravel and go horribly wrong.

If you enjoyed Nicole Kidman in The Others, you'll love this, and if you enjoyed The Shining with Jack Nicholson - or at least its story - you'll quickly get caught up in this tale of tragic secrets and sinister truths.

Just remember, this is an old fashioned chiller. It's all about that sense of unease as a door handle slowly turns, a floorboard creaks and a grotesque sigh whispers its way out of some dark, damp corner.....

11:40am Tuesday 25th March 2008

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