The Devil's Backbone

...är fantastiskt bra. Den landar väldigt nära ”Pans labyrint”, med en obehaglig blandning av brutalt våld, fantasyskräck och småpojkar i äppelknyckarbyxor.

10 yr-old Carlos arrives at a Spanish school sheltering the orphans of the Republican militia only to discover it has many supernatural secrets.

The Devil's Backbone, a mournful and beautiful new ghost story by Guillermo del Toro, understands that most ghosts are sad, and are attempting not to frighten us but to urgently communicate something...

...works both as art-house spooker and political allegory.

...a sorrowful and masterful ghost story set in 1939 in a dusty orphanage in Spain...