Review: The Devil’s Backbone

This is my second addition to AMBC and so far both articles are about horror movies (Edit: I used to stick the title “After Movie Boredom Condition” in some of my first reviews). I don’t intend on keeping this trend going but The Devil’s Backbone is a movie I couldn’t resist talking about. My first Guillermo Del Toro film was Hellboy but it was only after Pan’s Labyrinth that I really started paying attention to him. Just like Pan’s Labyrinth challenged what can be considered a fantasy, The Devil’s Backbone questions the standard horror film.

The Devil’s Backbone continues Del Toro’s obsession with the Spanish Civil War that shook up Spain from 1936 until 1939. His characters have two hardships to deal with. The first problem the characters face is the civil war itself. The orphanage is made up of fighting and dead soldier’s children and also houses some of the gold for the Republican army. The second of these hardships deals with Santi (Junio Valverde), a young boy who has mistakenly disappeared from the orphanage. The young boys all have different stories of what may have happened but only one knows the truth. This is where Jaime (Íñigo Garcés) comes in. He was with Santi at the time of his disappearance but has failed to tell anyone what has really happened. This all changes when Carlos (Fernando Tielve) arrives.

The story really begins when Carlos is left at the Orphanage by his self-proclaimed “tutor.” He awaits his father’s return from the war but no one has told him that he has actually been killed. By the end of the movie he never finds out his father is dead and while that bothers me it doesn’t take away from the rest of the movie all too much. Carlos is immediately interested in Santi and is determined to find out his story. This is where The Devil’s Backbone begins to separate itself from other horror stories. You get the sense that there is something more to Santi than just being a leftover spirit. This added mystery really makes the film alluring.

What I found was that it looked at horror in the same sense as another film would like at fantasy. The first half of the film scares you and provides you with the questions. The second half contains the answers of what really happened to Santi and why he is still haunting the orphanage. There are also many other character developments that break the normal patterns providing each scene with a reason and purpose. There are no senseless acts of violence here.

It was refreshing to see a new light be put on what turns out to be a somewhat traditional story. In retrospect you can really tell how this lead into later works by Del Toro. He even proclaimed Pan’s Labyrinth as being it’s “sequel in spirit.” Like Pan’s Labyrinth, the ending will leave you cheering and cringing all at the same time. This may be one of the only films where you’re glad when the ghost finally gets his revenge.