The Devil's Backbone

Guillermo del Toro's film, The Devil's Backbone (2001) is a political allegory during the time of the Spanish Civil War and a chilling ghost story. Del Toro has stated it is the second of three story cycle concerning the Spanish Civil War (the first is Cronos and this one is followed by Pan's Labyrinth). This story is about a young boy, Carlos, whose parents were sympathetic to the Republican cause is brought to an orphanage run by an aging doctor and headmistress.  He is assigned the bed of a missing child, Santi, who will turn out to be the ghost in question. Besides the mystery of the missing boy, there's an unexploded bomb in the courtyard of the orphanage.  Then there's the presence of malevolent Jacinto, a former member of the orphanage who works as the janitor who is sleeping with both the maid and the headmistress. Del Toro's living ghosts are as stuck on the past as are his deadly apparitions. Santi can be seen as the devil's backbone: a resurrected ghost never meant for human life. Santi might also represent the Spanish citizens, fighting for the rights by taking on the country's political complacency. In this orphanage of superstition, a bad seed is found in Jacinto. He is loathsome despite his pretty looks, Jacinto is not unlike a selfish revolutionary, so insensitive to his war-torn land that he will blow up his own family. It is a powerful and well executed horror film with a political conscious.