Despite its packaging, "The Orphanage" is not the latest Guillermo Del Toro film. It’s not really a horror film, either, at least not in the traditional sense. Instead, it’s a fairly low-key, deliberately paced ghost story more along the lines of "The Sixth Sense."

The plot, in which a woman (Belen Rueda, who’s terrific) purchases the old orphanage where she was raised, only to have her cancer-stricken adopted son disappear without a trance, provides some eerie moments and suspense. Director J.A. Bayona knows how to set up a scene and milk it for all it’s worth (aided considerably by Oscar Faura’s terrific camerawork).

The problem is with the story itself. Unlike "The Sixth Sense," where watching is like putting a puzzle together, and only after you add the last piece does the picture present itself, it’s clear early on where the story is going, and the inevitable ‘revelation,’ while logical, doesn’t come as any real surprise. A small quip, perhaps, considering "The Orphanage" is a lot better than most films passing off as supernatural horror these days. At the very least, despite its leisurely pace, the movie is never stupid.