10 Horrifying Haunted House Films

Another Guillermo Del Toro horror entry. This time the haunted house is an orphanage based in a remote part of Spain during the Civil War.

It's this grim setting that helps to elevate The Devil's Backbone over other haunted house stories. The ghost is plenty creepy when it makes an appearance, but it's almost a side plot to the glimpses we get of the wartime atrocities being committed everyday just beyond the confines of the orphanage.

When Carlos (Fernando Tielve) arrives at the orphanage - his parents having recently been killed fighting in the war - he learns from the other orphans that one of the boys, Santi, went missing. They have heard mysterious sighs and whispering at night and believe it’s proof that Santi’s ghost haunts the orphanage.

One night, Carlos is goaded into sneaking into the kitchen, even though it is forbidden to leave the dormitory after curfew, and that’s when he first encounters Santi’s ghost - who relays to Carlos an ominous message.

A great deal of attention was spent on Santi’s terrifying appearance: he was designed to look like a broken doll, Santi’s pale face is covered in tiny hairline fractures like a cracked porcelain mask. A wound on his head bleeds perpetually; the blood drifting out like red mist and dissipating into the air.