The Devil's Backbone

Where the similarly uncanny recent Nicole Kidman flick The Others was an engagingly creepy affair, The Devil’s Backbone is a beautifully crafted, intelligent and wholly original supernatural thriller.

In 1939, as the Spanish Civil War draws to a close, ten-year-old Carlos arrives at a dilapidated Republican orphanage run by an Argentinian professor and a widowed schoolmistress, Carmen (Paredes). If this isn’t unpleasant enough there’s the janitor Jacinto – a bully to rival Franco himself – an unexploded bomb lodged in the children’s playground, and the vengeful ghost of a child and former inmate whom the children refer to as ‘he who sighs’. Meanwhile, Carmen is living up to her handle by rejecting the kindly leftist professor in favour of the sexual attentions of fascist Jacinto, who in turn is ultimately more interested in the gold within the establishment’s safe than Carmen (or indeed, his fiance Conchita. Consequently, he hatches a terrible plan to get his hands on the goods, and soon the film works towards a devastating finale.

Guillermo del Toro’s last work and only foray into Hollywood filmmaking thus far (although he’s currently doing Blade 2) was 1997’s Mimic, a solid B-movieish feast of giant cockroaches somewhat marred by Mira Sorvino’s scarily overwrought central performance. Devil’s Backbone witnesses del Toro’s return to Spanish-language cinema, and more than fulfils the promise suggested by his surreal debut Cronos. Whereas that film had body-horror in its favour, The Devil’s Backbone relies largely on more subtle effects for its fear factor, but succeeds unerringly. Equally impressive is the effortless synthesis of the film’s disparate themes of sex, politics, ghosts and greed. The result is an impressively gothic, poignant, disturbing and highly potent cinematic experience.