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Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: [Director Bayona] has a fine career ahead of him. Read more
Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times: Eerie, atmospheric...an unexpectedly poignant ghost story. Read more
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: The Orphanage is a classically creepy Spanish horror film and a joltingly modern one. It turns down the thermostat on its chill slowly, deliberately. That just makes the big frights all the more heart-stopping. Read more
Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Like the best of horror films, it gets under your skin not with gore or cheap jolts but with an unnerving, ever-building tension, and with images that remain with you long afterward, interrupting your own quiet dreams. Read more
J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Despite a few bloodcurdling shocks, this handsome Spanish ghost story from producer Guillermo del Toro follows in the suggestive, richly romantic tradition of the old Val Lewton chillers. Read more
Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Ms. Rueda is such a gifted actor that she keeps this movie alive through thick and thin. Read more
Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: The Orphanage (El Orfanato) is the rare horror film that breaks your heart even as it makes it race. Read more
Ty Burr, Boston Globe: [Director] Bayona has fashioned an assured, even conservative piece of work, one that's lusciously filmed and more than a little terrifying but that in the end never widens out to greater art. Read more
Tom Charity, CNN.com: At a time when American horror seems transfixed by graphic sadism, the acclaimed Spanish chiller El Orfanato harks back to an older tradition of psychological scares and things that go bump in the night. Read more
Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: [Director] Bayona draws on everything from Peter Pan to Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, but it has a creepiness that's all its own. Read more
Tom Long, Detroit News: A well-made, Spanish ghost story that will creep you out and draw you in. Read more
Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: The ghosts of so many other arty supernatural Spanish-accented thrillers crowd the room in The Orphanage that you may feel at first like you're at a seance presided over by Guillermo del Toro. Read more
Mark Olsen, L.A. Weekly: Director Juan Antonio Bayona and screenwriter Sergio G. Sanchez ratchet up the tension to such excruciating heights that, while you're watching the film, your impulse is to scream out loud just to feel some sense of release. Read more
Gene Seymour, Newsday: Plot details only hint at the subtle metaphors lurking in Sergio G. Snchez's script and the gut-wrenching jolts elegantly orchestrated by first-time director Juan Antonio Bayona. Read more
David Ansen, Newsweek: Sergio Sanchez's richly ambiguous screenplay allows you to interpret what you are watching on both a supernatural and a psychological level, and either way is equally unnerving. Read more
Anthony Lane, New Yorker: The film is less of a shocker than an adventure in anxiety, testing and twisting some of the classic studies in infantile curiosity. Read more
Sara Cardace, New York Magazine/Vulture: Alas, there's no Ahhhh! moment at the end to justify the mounting tension. Read more
Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: The last act is laced with surprises, but, unfortunately, none that you might call pleasant. Read more
Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Go see it already. Read more
A.O. Scott, New York Times: The Orphanage, a diverting, overwrought ghost story from Spain, relies on basic and durable horror movie techniques. Read more
Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: The Orphanage is never less than engaging. Here and there it's even genuinely frightening. Read more
James Berardinelli, ReelViews: An effective mixture of horror and fantasy, with the supernatural bleeding into dreams that teeter on the brink of reality. Read more
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: A superior ghost story. Read more
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: A frightening movie that earns its scares the hard way, generating unbearable tension through artful technique instead of computer. Read more
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: When I first saw The Orphanage, I found it an overly clinical genre exercise whose sentimental moments felt forced, but it will also plant roots in your subconscious and linger there for weeks. Read more
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Beautifully conceived and composed, it's eerie, sometimes frightening and surprisingly moving. Read more
Christy Lemire, Associated Press: The Orphanage may take a couple of twists too many toward the end, but where it goes is effectively frightening. Read more
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Bayona never spoonfeeds the audience, giving us lots of latitude to exercise our imaginations and believe what we choose as the film builds to its devastating climax. Read more
Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: What's even more disquieting is the persistent undercurrent of exploitation -- the mixture of grief and jarring shock effects and the pitiless use of a disfigured child as a source of horror. Read more
Peter Howell, Toronto Star: The year's best horror picture is also one of the simplest. Read more
Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: There will be moments so tense, you'll need to calm yourself by saying, 'It's only a movie!' Read more
Nigel Floyd, Time Out: An extraordinary performance by Belen Rueda is the beating heart and tortured soul of The Orphanage. Read more
Claudia Puig, USA Today: In a season filled with dark-themed films, it stands out as an elegantly mounted, surprisingly humane but terrifying horror thriller well worth seeing. Read more
Justin Chang, Variety: The children just want to come out and play, and so do the very clever filmmakers running The Orphanage, a fastidiously grim ghost story that rattles the bones of the haunted-house genre and finds plenty of fresh (but not too bloody) meat. Read more
Desson Thomson, Washington Post: By exploring the psychological terrain of a haunted woman, the movie brings a dimension of reality into this otherworldly situation. Read more