10 Scariest Foreign Language Horror Films

Whilst not as iconic as director Guillermo del Toro’s masterpiece Pan’s Labyrinth, The Devil’s Backbone is arguably far more scary – Pale Man notwithstanding.

Similarly, The Devil’s Backbone masterfully blends supernatural horror with the terror of war through the eyes of a child. This narrative device gives the film a fantastical feeling of innocence lost, whilst also weaving a tragic ghost story throughout.

In the last year of The Spanish Civil War, a young boy named Carlos arrives at an orphanage that houses a huge, unexploded bomb in its centre courtyard. The imposing piece of potential destruction hangs over the lives of the boys at the orphanage, and mirrors the real life terror of tyrannical and violent older boy, Jacinto.

This would be scary enough for any child, but then Carlos and the audience discover that the ghost of one of the boys who mysteriously dies is haunting the building. The threat of fascism and the terrible unknown of the afterlife is a hell of a concept to try and depict on screen, but as always Del Toro manages it perfectly.

The ghost boy, whilst initially frightening, is a melancholy metaphor for personal and cultural trauma that plagues both Carlos and the audience. ¿Qué es un fantasma indeed.