THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE
Starring: Marisa Paredes, Eduardo Noriega, Federico Luppi
Directed by: Guillermo Del Toro
Distributed by: Sony Pictures Classics

Date: 03/23/02
By: Gerry Wang

    It's been a long time since I watched THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE, so I'll keep this review short. You might not have heard of this movie. In the Los Angeles area there were only 2 theaters showing it, and both only showed it a couple times a day. It's a shame too, because this was a tremendously well-made movie, despite the fact it's in Spanish and one has to read subtitles.

    I had to go to a creepy little dump of a movie theater in Pasadena to watch this, but you know what? The sewer-like ambience only enhanced the experience of watching THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE, a ghost story mixed with a schoolboy tale from the director of MIMIC, CRONOS, and the recently released BLADE II, which I will review soon.

Great school-boy tale.

    This story plays out like one of those ghost stories you like to tell around the campfire. During the Spanish Civil War, the country is torn apart by leftists and those opposed to them. Children are being orphaned left and right, as their parents are killed. THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE takes place in an orphanage, where some sort of unspeakable tragedy has occured.

    At the beginning of the movie, we see a boy whose head has been cracked open, and blood is pouring out as a fellow boy is sobbing his eyes out. Then we see the dead boy plunging into yellowish, murky water. As the sobbing boy runs out into the courtyard, a huge bomb is dropped from a bomber high up in the sky, a reminder of the ongoing war. But it doesn't explode. It's lodged in the ground.

Pepe is left behind in an orphanage.

    The story is told by Pepe (my default name for any protagonist's name I can't remember), who was recently dropped off at the orphanage by his caretakers so no harm would befall him. When he reaches there, he's instantly the "new kid," and his outsider status causes him to be bullied and hazed. But something's going on, because the ghost of a boy named Santi is haunting the orhanage.

    What happened? What does Santi want? Go watch THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE wherever you can, or wait for it to come out on video. It's is superbly made by Guillermo Del Toro, who is master at creating a hair-prickling atmosphere. Here, he finally gets a decent story to tell, but the drawback is that you sort of need to know the historical context of the Spanish Civil War.

    Check out the trailer here: Click! 

Creeeeeeepy.

Grade: B+
-- Chilingly atmospheric tale of childhood innocence lost.

Babe-o-meter: F
-- There was old fogey-banging. Almost made me retch.