Rental Review - The Devil's Backbone
The Devil's Backbone (2001), R, 106 minutes - Guillermo del Toro has long been one of my favorite directors, and this, his third feature film (after 1993's Cronos and 1997's Mimic) had been his only feature length film that I had not seen. Thanks to my wife adding the recent Criterion Collection blu-ray release to my movie vault as a Christmas gift, I am now able to cross it off of my 'to watch' list. del Toro has said on a number of occasions that 2006's Pan's Labyrinth was meant to be a companion piece to The Devil's Backbone. Having now seen both films (Pan's Labyrinth is one of my all-time favorites), not only is it easy to see that was his intention, but that he was also quite successful in his vision. The Devil's Backbone takes place in 1939 at a remote, struggling, and supposedly haunted orphanage in Spain towards the end of their Civil War. A young boy named Carlos (Fernando Tielve) is left there by the man he calls his 'tut...