Such is the case with The Orphanage(El Orfanato in its native language), Spain's official submission for Best Foreign Film at the(maybe) upcoming Academy Awards.

     The story starts off promisingly enough. We are shown a group of children at the Good Shepherd Orphanage playing a version of "red light, green light", and we soon come to find that one of them, Laura(Mireia Renau, servicable in her act-ing debut) is about to be given a home with a new family. Cut to years later, and Laura(Belen Rueda) as an adult and her husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) have bought the orphan-age and are refurbishing it as both a house and care center for other children. They have a son, Simon(Roger Princep), who doesn't know he's adopted, and is afflicted with early HIV. One day while playing on the beach near their home, SImon wanders into a cave and after a few moments of mild worry, Laura follows him in to find him talking to no one. But Simon puts forth that he has been talking to an invisible young lad named Tomas(Oscar Casas), who wants to come home and play with him. Knowing that Simon already has imaginary friends and figuring Tomas is just one more, Laura says it's fine and even watches admiringly as Simon lays down a trail of sea shells so his new buddy can find the way back to the house.

     Parents, are you paying attention? If your kid ever asks if a new imaginary friend can follow the both of you home, shout "F*** no!" and then proceed to ground your child for at least a month!

     Soon afterward, things begin to turn weird. The sea shells appear in a clump on the front doorstep. A mysterious old woman who supposedly works for child services shows up seeking new information on Simon's case. And Simon dis-plays knowledge about both his adoption and health status that he shouldn't have. When the day arrives for the opening of the house to prospective clients, Laura can't find Simon. What she does find instead is a malevolent young child wearing a sack cloth mask, who violently attacks her and locks her in a bathroom. Needless to say, opening day is ruined.

     The Orphanage does have a few things going for it. Dir-ector Juan Antonio Bayona(El Hombre Esponja) sets a very atmospheric, creepy mood. He doesn't take many expected turns when it comes to deciding which jolts to give, and chooses to remain old school in letting the buildup get your pulse racing. As photographed by cinematographer Oscar Faura(Quito, Endora), the movie is absolutely beautifully shot, and helps lend credence to the aforementioned atmosphere. The cast, from Fernando Cayo(Circulo Rojo, Concursante) as the grieving father willing to go along only so far with his wife's desire to hire a medium(Bloodrayne's Geraldine Chaplin) to find Simon, on down is top notch in each of their roles. Belen Rueda(Savage Grace, Los Serrano) is a standout as Laura, delivering believability to the shifting roles of loving wife and mother to frantic and desperate as she searches for their missing boy. And that's another thing: Bayona and writer Sergio G. Sanchez(Temporada Baja) allow the story to take place over the course of more than half a year, as Simon goes missing for six months.

     However, as many great traits that are possessed by The Orphanage, there are just as many shots against it that diminish their impact. The most egregious of these is that while there is plenty of buildup to certain moments, there's very little follow through. For all the moodiness and atmos-phere, there is truly only one good scare in the entire pic-ture. The music by composer Fernando Velazquez(Loops, El Hombre Esponja) does its best to be intense, but for the most part is absolutely laughable. And while the story itself is fairly original for the most part, unfortunately Bayona attempts--as so many others have--to give the final act and its "revelations" a Ring-like twist. The problem is, Bayona and his writer are not up to the task. And then even worse, the film goes on just a bit too long and delivers a second coda which completely goes against the grain of the story's grimness and in fact, the entire logic of how it should end. This second ending doesn't feel tacked on in any way, which just makes it more of a shame that it's so obvious an attempt by both writer and director to appeal to every demographic of the audience. It simply doesn't work.

     At this point in time, it would almost be nice to have a return to the plain old, "this is the story we're telling, what you see is what you get" mentality of The Exorcist, Halloween or even Dawn of the Dead. The Ring was lightning in a bottle, and if anything, the absurdness and failure of The Ring Two should have proven that such lightning isn't easily captured twice. Until that cycle of straightforward storytelling in horror comes around again, films like The Orphanage--a potentially powerful story that is ultimately betrayed by its very creators--should be left in their studios' vaults, where they belong.