An eerie figure in a child's mask. A malevolent battleaxe roaming the garden at night. Whispered exhortations from the ghosts of dead children.

Spanish director JA Bayona certainly has plenty to play with in a Guillermo del Toro-produced chiller that doesn't just chill but mentally dislocates.

The excellent Belen Rueda plays Laura, a married mum who returns to the seaside orphanage where she grew up to run the decrepit building as a home for disabled children.

Driven by an irrepressible maternal urge, she finds it slightly irking that her adopted son Simon (Princep) almost immediately becomes consumed by games with an imaginary friend.

She's disturbed further still by the visit of a sinister social worker who delivers an aged file on Simon detailing the fact he's HIV positive.

It's all too much when, hearing noises in the night, she discovers the "social worker" - a creepy old crone in jam-jar bottom glasses - lurking in the shed with a spade.

However, gamely dismissing these strange occurrences as a mere nuisance, she presses on with the opening day celebrations...only to be attacked by a terrifying figure in a crudely-drawn child's mask.

Director Bayona has gruesomely constructed a menacing thriller that keeps interest locked in a vice by virtue of a cleverly constructed plot which is rarely predictable.

With the mysterious disappearance of her son, the tension is ratcheted up another notch, allowing for a couple of scenes where the cinema seats takes on the last line of sensory defence.

Creepy moments include a icily effective visit by a Geraldine Chaplin's medium and a children's "knock, knock, knock" game in which you'd rather not join.

With Hollywood revelling in the current trend for torture porn, it seems Spain is the place to head for a fix of genuinely disturbing horror such as Pan's Labyrinth and the forthcoming REC.

Forget your carbon footprint...you'll need to leave the night light on after this.

Tim Evans