Great ghost stories are few and far between. With an increasingly jaded audience that has seen every jump-cut and gore shot of the last quarter-century of horror, finding a new way to scare a viewer gets harder by the day. People are becoming immune to real movie fear, especially when a new horror movie comes out every week and when actual horror comes into our living rooms through more newscasts and YouTube clips than ever before. As the torture porn trend comes to a merciful close, filmmakers are going to have to go back to the drawing board to figure out a way to scare moviegoers. They should all look at the scariest movie in years and one of the best of 2007, The Orphanage, an instant genre classic and a film that even transcends traps of the ghost story world to become one of the most effective dramas of the year. As Pan's Labyrinth was much more than just another fantasy movie and Children of Men was much more than a science fiction tale, The Orphanage is much more than a modern ghost story. It will haunt you, rock you, and make hairs you didn't even know you have stand at attention in fear. Don't miss it.

A mesmerizing mingling of The Haunting and Peter Pan (with some Spielberg-ian touches thrown in), The Orphanage stars the nomination-worthy Belen Rueda as Laura, a woman who was adopted years ago and returns to the old house where she waited for foster parents to re-open the long-closed building. Her own adopted son, Simon, who has HIV, quickly makes an imaginary friend who may not be so make-believe. Simon disappears after a party and Laura becomes a wreck, believing that the ghosts of the house took him away. She brings in psychics and becomes obsessed with not only trying to raise the ghosts of the orphanage but trying to figure out why they're there in the first place. And, all along, she may actually be going crazy. The most amazing twist of The Orphanage is that there may be no ghosts at all.

Director Juan Antonio Bayona and writer Sergio Sanchez have crafted a brilliant film about how the truest form of fear is not of the external but of our own internal pain. We all fear death because we think we won't be ready and we don't know what's on the other side. We all fear parenthood for a variety of reasons. We all fear losing our grip on reality. The Orphanage tells us that it is our fear of the world that will immobilize us and leave us orphans to what's around us not serial killers, mutants, or even ghosts.

The Orphanage is not just thematically heartbreaking and daring, it's one of the most technically accomplished films of the year. From first frame to last, it's impossible to take your eyes off of this film. Like Pan's Labyrinth (this film was produced by Guillermo Del Toro) from last year, it's a movie that I know I will watch again and again and that it will grow on repeat viewing as my own fears of the real world develop and change. The Orphanage should signal a shift in the horror landscape and show writers and directors that it's not gore or guts that create the true scares, but our common fear that makes things go bump in the night.