You know who's got a sweet gig? Orphans. Most of us have to wait nearly our whole damn lives before we can climb onto the government dole. Orphans are on board from day one, not only riding the gravy train, but simultaneously sucking from the public teat at the same time. That sounds like a pretty sweet gig, and, actually, a great idea for porn. Give me a minute while I go do a Google search for naked ladies in boxcars, smothered in country gravy and sucking nipples.

Okay, I'm back. There are a few sites dedicated to it, but they're paysites. I got to get the Mrs.'s credit card while she's not looking and buy a month's pass to a couple of them. You'll know I succeeded if I don't update for a month or so. In other words, I'll be updating my dick.

By jerking off all the time. Oh man, now I really want a chicken-fried steak.

Let me try to refocus. I was talking about those lucky sons of bitches orphans. No parents to tell them how disappointed the kids have made them. They get to sleep in bunk beds and eat in cafeterias. Nuns rap their knuckles with rulers. Hold on, now I need to do another Google search. Nobody smothers them in kisses and hugs or tells them they love them and expects them to say it right back. Sometimes you get to join a gang of street urchins and pickpockets and sing your days away. At age 18, you get tossed out on your ass, but I think they get like $50 cash. And they get laid a shitload. What better pick-up line is there than "I was an orphan and I never knew what love is, but if you'll suck on my dick I think I can begin to understand"? Oh, and who do you think gets all those toys the Marines collect at Christmas? I mean, the ones the soldiers can't disassemble and turn into weapons. I'm telling you, Orphanism is every bit as sweet a gig as a permanent bed in the children's ward at the hospital.

That's why I didn't realize until it started that The Orphanage wasn't going to be a, bust-your-hump laugh riot. Instead, it's a subtitled Spanish movie about a creepy old orphanage on the cliffs of the sea where a mother loses her son. I'm glad I was sober enough to read them this time. BelÈn Rueta plays a mother with a nice rack. She has an adopted seven-year old (Roger PrÌncep) who is HIV positive. For reasons I never quite understood, she buys and returns to the orphanage where she was raised. Her plan is to refurbish the empty house and then reopen it for children with special needs.

Before she can get too far along, though, the house starts making creepy sounds and her son starts talking to invisible children. A strange woman visits, disappears and is later found in the middle of the night, banging at a furnace with a shovel. So, basically, a lot of creepy, spooky shit.

Then, one day her son disappears. In a panic, she searches all over for him, and goes slightly over the edge in her search. Rueta learns that the children her son is speaking to are the ghosts of the children she grew up with, and the strange old lady was once an employee of the orphanage who's deformed son was accidentally killed by the other children. So, she poisoned the little brats, but this happened after Rueta had been adopted away. Probably by some pervy parents who liked looking at her chest.

The Orphanage then follows Rueta as she tries to piece together the history of the children, of the mysterious woman, and follow clues to where her son has disappeared to. It has loads of atmosphere, and the setting of a big, old creaky house with lots of confusing hallways and old furniture. As Rueta loses her mind, she lets paranormal investigators come and poke around, little children's voices are heard screaming through walls, and glimpses of ghosts are seen.

Some of bumps in the night are effective. Some aren't. The real problem, is the skeleton of the story is way too familiar. Orphans, old, creepy institution, a children who sees dead kids, a mother searching for her child, and a mystery that must be solved to quiet the dead before she can. All of that is pretty much done already. Where the story is going is pretty clear, and the only reason to watch is to see how it will get there.

Oh, and Rueta's rack. She's not that hot,, but she runs around the house at night in just an undershirt. A lot. Maybe this isn't that big a deal to other guys. Maybe I'm deprived, because whenever Mrs. Filthy does that for me, the people downstairs complain that their ceiling caves in. Oh, to be rich enough for concrete floors.

Ghost-faced sad kids in dark houses are pretty effectively creepy. So are old women digging up bones. Nice racks, aren't, but they are a fair reward for getting through all the spooky shit. The Orphanage is not the kind of movie where they try to make you jump out of your seat or wet your pants. It's more classy, like European shit usually is. It's about building dread and making the hair on your arms stand up. A deformed kid stumps around in a burlap sack mask, a dying medium screams through a door for sick kids to let her in, and footprints in the sand disappear. Of course, that last one could have been Jesus Christ carrying me on his back. The guy never shuts up about doing that for me.

What The Orphanage ends up being is just a slight variation on the ghost stories that's been told too many times already. It's done spookier and with more subtlety, and there are some real chills. But, come on already, we've seen enough kids who talk to distressed kids already. And mom's are way hotter when they are morose over the loss of a child. I wouldn't mind seeing Rueta run a marathon, though. At night. In a bouncy castle. Three Fingers.