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Devil's Backbone, The
Sony Pictures Classics


7.7

based on 25 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 10 votes
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Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for violence, language and some sexuality

Starring Marisa Paredes, Eduardo Noriega, Federico Luppi, Fernando Tielve, and Íñigo Garcés

A ghost story set in a Catholic orphanage during the Spanish Civil War.

GENRE(S):	Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Guillermo del Toro Antonio Trashorras David Muñoz
DIRECTED BY:	Guillermo del Toro
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: June 25, 2002 Video: June 25, 2002 Theatrical: November 21, 2001
RUNNING TIME:	106 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Mexico / Spain
LANGUAGE(S):	Spanish (with English subtitles)

Original Spanish title "El Espinazo del Diablo"

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

del Toro builds excitement, dread, and melodrama in equal layers.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

What gives the story resonance is the tenderness and sacrifice and even innocence del Toro reveals amid the savagery.

LA Weekly F. X. Feeney

Here is a ghost story so dynamic you could call it a ghost poem.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

With the ambitious and ominous The Devil's Backbone, Del Toro rises to a new level of accomplishment, adding history and politics to his distinctive blend.

New Times (L.A.) Luke Y. Thompson

The sensitive art-house viewer should be warned: Though slow-moving at first, the film ends in explosions and violent death, with a level of sadism that will undoubtedly prove too intense for some viewers.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Brooding ghost story is rich with psychological and political implications that never obscure its fundamental creepiness.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

It's a horror flick, and a creepily good one, that also functions as an allegory of the war that still haunts Spain seven decades later.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

This film is much more atmospheric; it builds, not so much logically as viscerally, until you feel you can't escape. Lurid and overdone as it is, it's still a real disturber of the peace.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

The movie is an expert, sunlit chiller audaciously predicated on an unquiet historical memory: "What is a ghost?"

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Del Toro has made a ghost story that's not only evocative and original, it's a pleasure to watch.

Chicago Reader Martin Rubin

An entertaining and atmospheric revenge tale.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Mr. del Toro provokes your screams and shudders, but he also earns your tears.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

Is nothing if not exquisitely detailed: It's like a blood orange that del Toro spends the film seductively unpeeling, revealing layer upon layer of meaning and pathos.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The Devil's Backbone has been compared to "The Others," and has the same ambition and intelligence, but is more compelling and even convincing.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Creepy and compelling and beautifully shot, The Devil's Backbone is a tale of the supernatural that feels completely natural. Its realness is what makes it so scary.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

A seductively corrosive horror story that also potently suggests the ways war can shatter childhood.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Genuinely scary, exquisitely shot -- and very well-acted.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

It's imaginatively filmed and builds a sense of brooding emotional power.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Along with "The Others," -- represents a welcome diversion from loud, senseless Hollywood extravaganzas.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

May be thin, but it's also sharp, like a stiletto.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

The film doesn't explore the nature of ghosts, as it promises to initially, but it's fun to watch Del Toro confront death and fear with such energy and humor.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

After a leisurely first half, The Devil's Backbone becomes utterly spellbinding, its tension mounting in steady increments, its story taking one dark turn after another, and its bittersweet resolution destined to haunt you long after you've left the theater.

Variety Jonathan Holland

Though it fails in its final reels to capitalize on its early promise, picture is still stylish, accomplished and tremendously enjoyable fare.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

del Toro blends agit-prop politics and ghoulishness without making the entire enterprise seem silly.

Film Threat Christopher Varney

That The Devil's Backbone makes any sense at all -- with its many, swirling plotlines -- seems like a little wonder.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 10 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Bill S. gave it a9:
An atmospheric wonder of a film. Del Toro uses horror to enhance the film, rather than making it the film. The characters are engaging, and the symbolism is rich. One in a recent line of smart horror films (Sixth Sense, The Others) that hopefully signals a resurgence of an almost lost genre. Buy this, don't rent it.

Gabor A. gave it an 8:
A ray of light in the dark abyss that is the horror genre. Like the sixth sense this movie focuses on character more than anything. Combine that with a unique plot, great directing, and a heart stopping finale makes this one of the best films to ever emerge from the horror genre or any other genre as well.

Chad S. gave it a 6:
As the orphans whittle away their sticks in order to overpower their capturer with spears, it hits you that "The Devil's Backbone" could be a Disney film, had the orphans been plucky, and the villain not some benign threat to their welfare. In "101 Dalmatians", Cruella de Vil and her henchmen were never going to hurt the puppies. But the unwritten taboo is broken in "The Devil's Backbone", a purportedly sophisticated film that also has the base mentality of a slasher pic in how women are punished for desiring sex. Aesthetically, the talented Guillermo del Toro has crafted an intriguing ghost story that obliquely quotes Alejandro Jodorowsky's "Santa Sangre"(a pool of water, the missing appendage of a woman), and "The Sixth Sense"(a ghost that needs help), and maybe, "Map of the Human Heart" (that baby in the jar of alcohol is a map of sorts, and the war backdrop). It's a smart film, with a smarter metaphor than the red doorknob in M. Night Shyamalan's masterpiece. Indoor fireworks are more explosive than the outdoor kind is how we translate the key del Toro visual. For all that's right about the plotting and tone of "The Devil's Backbone", there's something diabolical about killing women, old people, and children, to be ironic. These people live in a war setting, but die at war with themselves. This bit of cleverness left me cold, perhaps, because there are so many cold bodies.

Ricardo R. gave it a 9:
Very well done, not the stupid plot about ghosts.

Jacintha gave it an 8:
Beautiful! Well acted, well filmed...if anything, i wish it could been longer, could have gone more into depth about Jacinto. And other than him, there were no "bad guys." But excellent nonetheless.

Richard gave it a 6:
Not really scary, but sad like most ghost stories. The payoff may not be worth the investment if you're looking for "Boo!"-type scares.

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Devil's Backbone, The Sony Pictures Classics

Devil's Backbone, The
Sony Pictures Classics