October 29th: THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE (Guillermo del Toro, 2001)

During the Spanish Civil War, a young boy encounters a ghost while staying at an orphanage.

Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro went to film school in his hometown of Guadalajara, and got his start in the business creating special effects.  His debut feature, the independent horror film Cronos, was well-received and attracted the attention of Spanish director Pedro Almodovar.  After a brief detour with the big studio film Mimic, Del Toro made his next film in Spain with Almodovar producing.

The Devil's Backbone is an updated version of a script del Toro wrote while still in school.  Set during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s, it draws on the director's own childhood as well as a well-known Spanish comic series.  The film was shot in and around Madrid and on location in the Castille-La Mancha region.

The cast includes frequent Almodovar collaborator Marisa Paredes, Eduardo Noriega (Open Your Eyes), Federico Luppi (Cronos), and a good number of child actors.  Returning to work with del Toro behind the camera is cinematographer Guillermo Navarro.

Various special effects were required to translate del Toro's vivid imagination, including facial prosthetics, puppets, miniatures, and underwater photography.

The film was released to positive reviews, and allowed del Toro to take another, more successful run at Hollywood (the Hellboy films, Blade II), as well as a return to Spain for the award-wining companion piece Pan's Labyrinth.

Running time is approx. 100 minutes.