Set near the end of the Spanish Civil War, this bone-chilling allegorical ghost story sees ten-year-old Carlos (Fernando Tielve) sent to a remote orphanage that is reputedly haunted by the ghost of a dead boy - "he who sighs". There he uncovers a secret involving the sadistic young caretaker (Eduardo Noriega), who surely represents fascism in the film's vivid metaphor for the war. Mexican director Guillermo del Toro makes less overt use of his background in make-up effects - unlike his previous creepshows Cronos and Mimic - and instead relies on the power of suggestion and sound for the chilling, ever-present horror, as the fates of the orphans and their guardians become tragically inter-linked. Though the whodunnit takes a fairly predictable course, the Spanish Civil War background adds powerful narrative and symbolic weight, while the striking imagery - most notably, the presence of an unexploded bomb in the yard - is simply poetic. It's produced by Pedro Almodóvar's company, El Deseois.

Spain, 1939. In the last days of the Spanish Civil War, the young Carlos arrives at the Santa Lucía orphanage, where he will make friends and enemies as he follows the quiet footsteps of a mysterious presence eager for revenge.