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| El Espinazo del Diablo (The Devil's Backbone) |
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 (10/10)
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Runtime: 106 |
| Public Rating: 9.90 (10 votes) |
Director: Guillermo del Toro |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Drama/Horror |
Year: 2001 |
| Writer(s): Guillermo del Toro, Antonio Trashorras |
| Distributor: 1 |
| Reviewed by: Arturo García Lasca |
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This film was a complete surprise, I was expecting some gory horror flick and instead I got this, an incredibly well made film mainly about ghosts. The cool thing is, the ghosts in here aren't many (actually only one through most of the film), and they don't go ripping people's heads off or stuff like that, it's a ghost story like no other.
The film, which is located in Spain during the civil war, starts when some men drop a kid in an orphanage controled by Professor Casares (Federico Luppi), an older man of science, and Carmen (Marisa Paredes), a woman with a wooden right leg. Carlos (Fernando Tielve) has just los his parents, and he's told he'll stay in there for a short while, but it's actually for a long time. In the center of the orphanage there is a missile standing up, it was thrown by a plane and miraculously it didn't explode; some people went there and deactivated it, and the bomb was left there.. probably as part of the decoration.
From the first day Carlos notices the missile produces strange noises when he puts his head close to it, and he also seems to spot what it seemed like the reflex of another kid behind a door. There are several other kids living in there, and it doesn't take long until they discuss what has been scaring them for a while: there is a ghost in the orphanage. Apparently, it's the ghost of a kid that used to live there and one day just disappeared with no trace. Carlos is sleeping in what used to be his bed now.
I don't want to give much away, but there's much more than just the kids and the ghost; Jacinth (Eduarto Noriega) is a young man who works over there, he's not very nice with the kids and there are some aspects about him that others don't know.
What a wonderful film. The acting: It couldn't have been better, every single character was awesome. The kids did a fantastic job but it was the grown ups who made every scene truly worth watching; Eduardo Noriega and Marisa Paredes were just great, and Federico Luppi showed he still has some acting talent, as a matter of fact I think his performance was memorable, specially the last scenes.
The direction was amazing, the dark atmosphere seemed so real that for moments I actually thought I was inside the film, nothing was left out and nothing was exaggerated, it was all nearly perfect. The ghost scenes were very impressive, they turned out to be scary sometimes, but nothing you couldn't take normally.
But what I really enjoyed was the character development. Each character seems to have a story of his own, and we get to see what's going on through everyone's mind. With the exception of the Professor every character seems to have a secret of his own, and they're all trying to end their problems: Jacinth is after some gold that's being kept in the orphanage; professor Casares and his way of treating Carmen; Carmen and how she handles her lonelyness and the suffering for her lack of one leg; and the kids, who through the film discover some stuff about the ghost and what he's doing in there.
Most of the people who read this lines will probably watch the film dubbed or with subtitles, but I don't think it'll take much away; I personally enjoy watching films in my main language, and the only ones I do watch in spanish are the ones made by spanish-speaking filmmakers, I hate dubbing. Anyways, this is a great film and everything about it is great, I'm pretty sure most people will enjoy it, so make a big effort if needed, but try to find this film somewhere and watch it.
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 Printable Version
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* Available subtitles: English
* Available Audio Tracks: Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1)
* Commentary by director Guillermo del Toro
* Brand-new director-supervised HD transfer
* Deleted scenes with optional director commentary
* Making-of documentary
* Director's thumbnail track
* Excerpts from director's notebook
* Conceptual art galleries
* Storyboard thumbnail comparisons
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