10 Saddest Horror Movie Moments

J. A. Bayona's The Orphanage is one of the most hauntingly melancholic horror stories of the late-2000s. A story about how the past cannot be ignored or hidden, and how the wounds it leaves will be felt, one way or another.

The plot revolves around a mother and son moving into the former's old orphanage so she can breathe new life into it, as a way of paying back the kindness they showed her in her youth. Just a shame about all the old life that's still in there.

The film sees the son, Simon, seemingly vanishing, sending Laura on a desperate hunt to track him down. In the process, she learns about what happened after she left the orphanage. Unfortunately for her, none of the answers are particularly uplifting. 

Turns out, shortly after she left, the other kids accidentally killed the son of one of the women working there, and in retaliation, the mother poisoned them all. But that pales in comparison to the revelation that she killed Simon. While searching for him the night he vanished, Laura moved some heavy scaffolding in front of his hiding place, and he broke his neck trying to escape. The ghost kids weren't messing with her, and didn't mean Simon any harm - they were leading Laura to where Simon's body fell.

If the revelation of this tragic accident doesn't rock you to your core, then Belén Rueda's performance when she finds her son and realizes what she did will utterly shatter you.