The Devil's Backbone

Guillermo del Toro drafted this story before Cronos. That version was set in the Mexican Revolution and turned on a three armed Christ, not the ghost of a boy. The title came from a Mexican mountain range; in Spain it was reattached to the liquid in the doctor’s jars. Agustín Almodóvar, Pedro’s brother, produced it; filming ran in Madrid and Talamanca de Jarama. It is Fernando Tielve’s first film. DDT in Barcelona built the ghost’s face, but prosthetics are only half of it: the Sight and Sound review calls the swirl of dust and flies around Santi digital. Spain’s Goya Awards listed it for special effects and costume design and it won neither; the effects nominees included Emilio Ruiz del Río, who had worked for Kubrick and Welles. Subtitles matter here. Del Toro later wrote the English subtitles for Pan’s Labyrinth himself, because he found the ones on this film, in his words, for the thinking impaired and incredibly bad. A good fit if you want a ghost used to show what a war does to children rather than to deliver shocks. Not for anyone who would rather not see violence aimed at children; the BBFC advice describes a boy stabbed in the armpit with a homemade wooden spear, then through the hand, then pushed into the reservoir.