10 Spanish Horror Movies You Must See Before You Die
5. The Devil’s Backbone
Here we are back at an orphanage again...
The Devil's Backbone is about a young orphan boy who is brought to a foster home with an ominous undetonated bomb firmly planted in the middle of its courtyard. It is not long before the young boy begins to be haunted by the ghost of another orphaned child named Santi.
After having a terrible experience working with a big Hollywood studio while making Mimic, Guillermo del Toro decided to return to his roots. The result is this unbelievably creepy ghost story set against the backdrop of the end of the Spanish Civil War.
The Devil’s Backbone’s may have borrowed the look of Santi from the pale Japanese ghosts of Ju-On and The Ring, but everything else here is wholly original. With The Devil's Backbone, Del Toro is beginning to marry the complex themes of childhood, war and national identity with traditional supernatural folklore. Something we will see him return to with a vengeance later in his career.