El espinazo del diablo (2001)

Director:

Guillermo del Toro

Writers:

Guillermo del Toro (written by) and
Antonio Trashorras (written by) ...

Release Date:

20 April 2001 (Spain)

Genre:

Fantasy | Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

The living will always be more dangerous than the dead.

Plot:

It is 1939, the end of three years of bloody civil war in Spain, and General Franco's right-wing Nationalists...

Plot Keywords:

Orphanage | Ghost | Bully | Bomb | Spain

Awards:

6 wins & 7 nominations

Cast

Marisa Paredes	...	Carmen
Eduardo Noriega	...	Jacinto
Federico Luppi	...	Dr. Casares
Fernando Tielve	...	Carlos
Íñigo Garcés	...	Jaime
Irene Visedo	...	Conchita
José Manuel Lorenzo	...	Marcelo
Francisco Maestre	...	El Puerco (as Paco Maestre)
Junio Valverde	...	Santi
Berta Ojea	...	Alma
Adrián Lamana	...	Gálvez
Daniel Esparza	...	Marcos
Miguel Ortiz
Juan Carlos Vellido
Javier Bódalo	...	Búho (as Javier González Madrigal)

Also Known As:

The Devil's Backbone (Europe: English title) (UK) (USA)
L'échine du diable (Canada: French title) (France) [fr]
A Espinha do Diabo (Brazil) [pt]
Das Rückgrat des Teufels (Germany) (TV title) [de]
Djävulens ryggrad (Sweden) [sv]
Djævlens rygrad (Denmark) (festival title) [da]
I rahokokalia tou diavolou (Greece) (festival title) [el]
La spina del diavolo (Italy) [it]
Paholaisen selkäranka (Finland) (TV title) [fi]
Sti rahi tou Diavolou (Greece) [el]
The Devil's Backbone (Finland) (DVD title) [fi]

MPAA:

Rated R for violence, language and some sexuality.

Runtime:

106 min | Australia:108 min

Country:

Spain | Mexico

Language:

Spanish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Netherlands:16 | Argentina:16 | Australia:MA | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:R (Ontario) | Chile:14 | France:-12 | Germany:16 | Japan:PG-12 | New Zealand:R16 | Norway:15 | Peru:14 | Singapore:PG | Spain:13 | Switzerland:14 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15 | USA:R | Finland:K-15

Filming Locations:

Madrid, Spain

Company:

El Deseo S.A.

Trivia:

This labor of love for director Guillermo del Toro was sixteen years in development.

Quotes:

Casares: What is a ghost? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again? An instant of pain, perhaps. Something dead which still seems to be alive. An emotion suspended in time. Like a blurred photograph. Like an insect trapped in amber.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in 'Hellboy': The Seeds of Creation (2004) (V)

Soundtrack:

Recordar

Masterful Spanish ghost story - an instant classic

THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE (El Espinazo del Diablo)

Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Sound format: Dolby Digital

During the Spanish Civil War, a young orphan boy (Fernando Tielve) is sent to an isolated boarding school where he encounters the ghost of a murdered child (Junio Valverde) who warns him of impending disaster...

A masterpiece. Filmed in Spain by writer-director Guillermo del Toro following his unhappy Hollywood debut (MIMIC), this spellbinding melodrama works both as an examination of the political turmoil which characterized the Spanish Civil War, and as a simple ghost story in which a tragic spirit seeks vengeance for a terrible crime. Employing restless camera-work and atmospheric set designs to their best advantage, del Toro visualizes his own script (co-written with Antonio Trashorras and David Muñoz) as the story of a vulnerable child cast adrift in a strange new world, where he must contend not only with everyday problems (such as the school bully, Ínigo Garcés, whose motives are rather more complex than they first appear), but also his frequent encounters with the unhappy ghost, some of which are genuinely unsettling (watch out for the heart-stopping sequence in which Tielve is besieged in a closet by the enraged phantom).

Production values are first-class throughout, ranging from César Macarrón's evocative art direction and Salvador Mayolas' ultra-creepy sound design, through to Luis de la Madrid's crisp editing skills and Javier Navarrete's unforgettable music score. Visual effects and makeup designs are also superb, though deliberately underplayed for maximum emotional effect. The cast is toplined by Spanish movie veterans Marisa Paredes (a favorite of Pedro Almodóvar) and Federico Luppi (CRONOS), and there are impressive turns by Irene Visedo as a young woman whose loyalties are divided by circumstances, and rising star Eduardo Noriega (the Spanish equivalent of Brad Pitt) as Visedo's boyfriend, an orphan-turned-caretaker whose volatile nature leads to a dramatic conclusion, with appalling consequences for everyone around him. Tielve is magnificent as the wide-eyed innocent at the center of the narrative, and Garcés is every bit his equal as the bully who reclaims his dignity during a climactic showdown with the forces of evil. Released around the same time as THE OTHERS (2001) - another Spanish ghost story, filmed in English as a vehicle for Nicole Kidman - THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE was consigned to Art-house distribution by virtue of its status as a subtitled movie and suffered a comparative loss at the US box-office, though del Toro's magical fever dream is unquestionably the better of the two films.

(Spanish dialogue)