Guillermo del Toro, who quickly became one of the most talked-about directors in contemporary horror films with his first two features, Chronos and Mimic, takes on a more subtle tale of terror with this psychological suspense piece. Casares (Federico Luppi) and Carmen (Marisa Paredes) operate a small home for orphans in a remote part of Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Helping the couple mind the orphanage are Jacinto (Eduardo Noriega), the groundskeeper, and Conchita (Irene Visedo), a
teacher who is also involved with Jacinto. Casares and Carmen are aligned with the Republican loyalists, and are hiding a large cache of gold that's used to back the Republican treasury; perhaps not coincidentally, the orphanage has also been subject to attacks from Franco's troops, and an unexploded bomb waits to be defused in the home's courtyard. One day, a boy named Carlos (Fernando Tielve) arrives at the home, looking for a place to stay after being left behind by his parents. Casares and Carmen take him in, and the boy soon strikes up an unlikely friendship with Jaime (Inigo Garces), a boy with a reputation for tormenting other kids. But Carlos soon begins having visions of a mysterious apparition he can't identify, and hears strange stories about a child named Santi who went missing the day the bomb appeared near the orphanage. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
The chills and suspense and graphic violence are leavened with the horror that comes from knowing the victims -- and knowing they are undeserving of their fate.
Calling The Devil's Backbone a ghost story is an unfair simplification of an exquisitely crafted film... If you must label this film as horror, then it's a horror film with a soul.
If only for its technical aspects, this would rate as a pleasurably superior supernatural psychological thriller, with polished but subtle special effects, painterly, atmospheric cinematography and vivid performances.
During the Spanish Civil War a boy is unceremoniously deposited at an out of the way delapidated orphanage, and so begins this beautifully photographed drama about the lives that intersect there and how they make their way. Wild cards in the piece are a few bars of hidden gold ... and a vengeful boy ghost. Not
electrifying, but not bad at all.
This isn't so much a horror film, as it is a drama with supernatural elements. This was a very fine film. Rarely do we get to see a true ghost story that focuses on the story more than cheap scares. In fact this is more than just a ghost story... this is more like a story that just so happens to feature a ghost. Very
well done.
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