Guillermo del Toro is a Spanish directed who, ironically, is probably best known for his American films. Back in '97 he brought us the surprisingly well done Mimic, which shined amidst the leaky septic tank known as the "Neo-Slasher Rejuvenation", in which every movie to be labeled as "horror" in the '90s had to star at least one member of "Party Of Five" or "Dawson's Creek" and involved some hackneyed story about a masked serial killer, who was usually 9 times more human than '80s icons Freddy Krueger, Jason Vorhees and Michael Myers had become... however two guys in a $5 Halloween costume, Rebecca Gayheart in a hooded winter coat nor the pissed off cousin of the Gorton's™ fisherman could ever really hold a candle to the aforementioned slasher stars from the '80s. Anyway, Mimic was cool and in 2002, del Toro did a rarity in Hollywood: he made a sequel that outdid it's predecessor. Yes, the man gave us Wesley Snipes doing double-time in the ass-kickin' department in Blade II. Between these two ventures, the man took a time out to provide his mother land of Espana (the Spanish word for "Spain") with a little flick that dropped the flash and dash of Mimic and it's Tinsel Town funding and instead made up for the lack of dinero and computer FX that cost more than I make in a two year haul with something that takes far more talent to pull off: atmosphere and suspense.... to which he did a complete 180 to when he made Blade II, but let's just call that a display of the man's diversity, shall we?

The Devil's Backbone (or El Espinazo del Diablo as it's called in the land of, uhm, Spanish things) is a little tale of war, ghosts, inescapable tragedy and the evil that men are capable of... kinda like Meatballs III in a sadly beautiful way... Our film is started on a simple question: What is a ghost? Well, you'd think it were a simple question (provided you were a supernatural investigator or a ravenous Ghostbusters™ fan), until del Toro starts laying down some heavy metaphors about insects in amber and such... did I miss the words "Jurassic" and "Park" somewhere in the title? Anyway, following this little "make ya think" query, we witness two young Spanish boys, one in a panic because the other's got a severe head wound. Before you know it, the injured lad is sinking in a well, bound with rope, possibly in favor of a faster death. Is this other lad a friend, well wisher (Get it? "Well" wisher? Heh heh, come on, you get it, right? Okay, I'll stop, just get your hand off of the .44) or just a kid who likes to drown things, including other kids? That's for the courts to decide. A twisted opening credits sequence of numerous Spanish words and names follows, playing over twisted amber images of what look like fetuses in jars of preservative. If there's one way to start a movie, it's with bodies in jars!

Our focus now centers on a Spanish orphanage (hey, the movie was made in Spain, so I don't REALLY need to keep mentioning how everything's "Spanish", do I?) known as Santa Lucia, located in the middle of nowhere. The Spanish Civil War rages on, as bloodthirsty democrats wage war on their republican oppressors. The children of the falling Republic's soldiers are carted to Santa Lucia by government faithfuls Mr. Ayala and Mr. Dominguez in honor of their fallen comrades in arms. Recently the orphanage has become host to an undetinated bomb, dropped on their young heads by democrat planes. The place has also become the new hang out for a phantasmal lad the kids call "the one who sighs", though my vast movie viewer know-how gives me a 12th sense that says this specter is what's left of the drowned kid... well, besides the rotting carcass decaying in the drinking water... The 'age's latest tenant is Carlos, an optimistic young lad who thinks he's there for just a little visit, until he realizes all too late that he's the victim of one of those "Hey Fido, let's go for a picnic!" schemes. Yes, his escorts drop off his bags, hop into their jalopy and it's "Welcome to your new home, sucker!" for Carlos. Carl's a busy little beaver too, as in his first night there he makes a few friends, comes under attack by the local bully and pisses himself in terror when he meets the ghost of Santa Lucia. The ghost's name is Santi, a kid to whom the majority of the alumni recently ran off when the bomb dropped. However Jaime (the bully) knows otherwise, cuz we SAW him with Santi in the opening! Ouch, not a good move by Guillermo for an opening, is it?

Santi isn't just here to chill with his posse though, he's come to give Carlos tidings of bad mojo, prophecies of doom for those who call the orphanage home. Could this be doom courtesy of the live warhead that sits like a morbid piece of courtyard statuary dedicated to the horrors of war, or perhaps something a little more subtle? Then again, I think even Killdozer™ would fall under the "less subtle than a bomb dropped from the sky" category! Santi's being a real dick when it comes to predicting doom. He might as well have said "you will all die soon... from something bigger than a bread box but smaller than a battleship". Aside from the kiddies in this junior prison, we've also got the faculty, which consists of the young stud and resident dickweed Jacinto, 15 year senior of Santa Lucia and the "teacher's pet"... as in heavy PETting... By Jacinto's side is his fellow alumnist Conchita, who he intends to marry and buy a farm with... I mean an actual farm, not the latest fad in couples' suicides. She's also apparently the only girl in the orphanage's class history... Taking care of the sick and injured is the Argentinean Dr. Casares, who makes spare change dabbling in the art of roadside prescriptions, selling fetus rum to limp peckered old men in town to help fund the 'age... where'd you think Viagra™ came from? Finally, the lady in charge of the entire ordeal is Carmen, who rules her safe haven for the children of war NOT with an iron fist, but with a wooden leg... there's so much ripe for parody here, but it's all played with a face straighter than that of my 6th grade English teacher. No, the one WITHOUT the hunchback...

When young Carlos attempts to discuss the topic of supernatural phenomenon with Casares, Dr. C just turns it around on the lad and changes the subject from ghosts and hauntings to wartime superstitions and old impotent guys. Basically, the scene ends with Dr. C telling Carl that if he's going to believe in phantasms that don't star Angus Scrimm and Reggie Bannister, then he might as well chug down a jug of Dr. Devil's Backbone's Magic Miscarriage Rum and watch his troubles melt away in a wash of hippy juice... needless to say, Carlos pusses out and disavows any ghostly encounters. Later, when childhood hijinx turn dangerous and Carlos is forced to rescue the swimless Jaime from his own drowning episode in the orphanage's well, Jaime accepts Carlos as one of them. Before you know it, everybody's acting chummy like the boozehounds at last call, swapping war stories and sharing crude drawings of naked women with deformed genitalia. Elsewhere, Miss Leg O' Stump is gettin' her dusty old clam drilled and fulfilled my young stud Jacinto, feeding the old lady lust she so desires and can't get from Casares, whose only offering is bad poetry that doesn't rhyme and a flacid little Spanish sausage that hasn't pointed North for way too long. As for Jacinto, he's not in it for the prized cripple sex (ah, another to add to the list!) or the subconscious desire to brown nose to the teacher (hopefully not in the literal sense... uggh), he's just waiting for his chance to raid the school's budget, which consists of a small stack of solid gold bars. Hey, that's why I did it with my high school principal... yes, I'm a whore, so just throw me your money and spread your legs now, cuz I don't do foreplay... for less than $20.

Carlos's tales of his encounters with the restless spirit get the kids' thinking that the ghost actually lives in the courtyard's new war-deco conversation piece. As for Jaime, he's not too interested in the whole idea, nor about discussing the disappearance of Santi... boy, the opening sequence REALLY ruined this ENTIRE underlying plot point, didn't it?! As we can all get by firing our smoldering brain cells at this point, the ghost is that of the dead Santi, whom Jaime found in the beginning and therefore doesn't wish to discuss, as he was either responsible for the incident or he witnessed something that could get him in deep if he speaks out about it. Sorry Guillermo, but you still have a few things to learn about writing a movie, especially the whole "if you deliver the spoilers, the ending loses about 90% of it's impact" thing... As for that little civil war thing going on outside the 'age's walls, Dr. C realizes it's getting a little too close to home while in town, as he packs up his fetus booze and witnesses Mr. Ayala forced against a wall with several fellow revolutionaries (including a Chinaman?!) and shot in the back of the head. Fearing for his beloved Carmen and their pseudo Brady Bunch, Casares hauls ass back to the homestead and tells everybody to start packin' for a move to higher ground.

As the lads gather their meager belongings (don't forget the naughty drawings of boobies and horizontal puntangs guys!), Jacinto makes his play for the stash, proclaiming he's had enough of these fucking people and he's ready to head out on his own!... uhm, with money stolen from starving children and crippled old people... well, Casares is crippled in the shorts... both elderly characters are missing a leg, and I'd have to say that the doctor's is the worst kind... Anyway, Jacinto's flexing of his machismo is soon squashed as he's bitch smacked into a broken shnoz courtesy of Carmen and her walking stick, then sent crying like a bitch as he's expelled from his home of 15 years at gunpoint by the good doctor, a mistake that Dr. C will live to regret... but not for long. In this time, Carlos makes the Sherlockian deduction that "the one who sighs" is actually Santi back from the grave, something I could've told you an hour ago, or at least 5 paragraphs. Whilst everyone is still distracted with their imminent relocation, Rico Suave himself, Jacinto, slips in the backdoor, pours the 'age's gasoline supply all over the place and prepares to torch the pad with everyone still inside! The resulting explosion(s) leave half the place in wreckage, half the kids as lifeless corpi, fat faculty member Anna (who had absolutely no use up until this point) also corpsified, Carmen and Dr. C with a severe disease that involves their blood refusing to stay in their bodies and most importantly, el Chevy's been blown all to fuck, making it not so much "like a rock", but more "like a big piece of twisted steel engulfed in flames.

After he watches the love of his old man life fade and disappear in his arms, Casares perches in the orphanage's bell tower like a really old and profusely leaking Lee Harvey Oswald, a death grip on his shotgun as he awaits the return of that bastard Jacinto. In the aftermath, as the kids await their unavoidable deaths either at the hands of the progressing rebel forces or the cold mistress of starvation, Jaime and Carlos have a "moment" and Jaime spills the refried beans about Santi. Turns out that Santi and Jaime were harvesting slugs down in the 'age's basement (!?) one night, when Santi went up into the kitchen to discover Jacinto in one of his nightly attempts at raiding the hidden safe with the gold. While pushing Santi around and threatening him if he opens his mouth, Jacinto accidentally cracked the kid's skull off the wall, resulting in a serious head injury. While Jac' headed off to find something to cover up this little booboo, Jaime ran to his friend's side, panicking as the lad's brains oozed out on the concrete and his body just twitched unnaturally. Rather than help Santi though, Jaime lost his balls and jumped back into the veil of darkness, watching on as Jac' tied up his little accident and dumped him into the drinking water... you'd think somebody would've noticed the odd taste of meat in the drinking water, but their taste buds have probably been turned to shit by all the burned gunpowder in the air from the war... Jaime of course couldn't help Santi after Jacinto left because, as foreshadowed earlier in the movie, he can't swim... everything means something in these movies, you just have to remember to take the finger out of your nose so your brain can recall these moments and puts the pieces of the puzzle together... my puzzle is a big picture of Mr. T making a fist... I got it on e-Bay for $1. :-D

So, now Jaime says he'll kill Jacinto when he comes to avenge his fallen friend and try to win back a little of the self-esteem that Jac's been burning from him for years like so much sizzled pubic hair. Sure enough, Jacinto and his two gringo low-life amigos return to the scene of the crime to rummage through the debris and maybe dig up some of that sweet gold and make teeth and chains out of it, then move to Hollywood and make some "bling bling"... or is that "blang blang"?... perhaps "blong blong"?... or better yet, "fuck it". Conchita winds up stabbed to death (the sad end to an unrequited love for Jaime, which looked like it might pull a sitcom and turn out okay until now) when she won't apologize for shooting Jacinto in the arm, and Dr. C finally just dies in his chair, leaving the laddies alone to face down the evil that man is capable of. So, like rejects from Lord Of The (Spanish) Flies, our latchkey troop of orphan boys sharpen some sticks, make home shivs with broken glass shards, and hunt down Jacinto, who's been dumped by his two burly sweaty boyfriends, both fed up when their search for the gold turns up fruitless. Without the aid of his cronies, the bad guy is made quick work of, his rifle lost as he's stabbed in the armpit (YOWZA!), then poked and impaled repeatedly like an extra from Mark Of The Devil before being kicked into the well to become the victim of phantom Santi. And so, with revenge served, our pint-sized not-so-superheroes gather what they have left (cheap porn, badly written comicbooks and some meat flavored toilet water) and head off into the unknown outside the walls of Santa Lucia... probably either to die of dehydration before they reach civilization, or die of lead poisoning courtesy of revolutionary gunfire. That'll teach 'em to be the children of the Republic!

Though The Devil's Backbone is heavy with atmosphere, human tragedy and just enough innocence and heart to make a girl shed a tear while her shallow boyfriend's busy trying to remove her panties without her noticing, it didn't have the impact on me that my girlfriend obviously expected it to. I was literally berated because I didn't think this movie was anything more than mediocre. Granted, the makeup and Spooky Santi FX were spiffy, but as far as heart goes, I'll turn to Jean-Pierre Juenet for that, as it's done in a way that's really surreal, quirky and, dare I say it in the presence of other men, charming. In the suspense and dramatic storytelling department, I was let down. A lot of the reviews I've read for this movie praise not only the heart of the film, but del Toro's great use of suspense... I saw the ending coming from a mile away. Granted, the opening wasn't a complete exercise is the deadly art of giving away the movie's mysteries, but it was enough for me to see it as being about as subtle as Godzilla and Mothra having a kaiju love-fest in the middle of Tokyo... A couple of things that stuck in my side like a thistle between my pimply ass cheeks in addition: there are only boys at the orphanage as apparently girls weren't important enough to save from the war I'm guessing, and Santi can't walk through doors or walls or anything, yet he CAN dissipate into thin air on reflex, which would mean he should easily be able to turn into this misty like form and just slip under the bottom or through the keyhole...

Basically, I'm saying that once again I go against the grain of popular opinion and say that I officially didn't get off on this movie, nor will I ever. It had moments, it's well made, but it's not entertaining, and that's NOT just because it's not filled with gore, tits, foam rubber appendages and Jeffrey Combs. One good excuse for my opinion? I don't like kids. In fact, my own will only serve to be sold into slavery. Whether Spanish, American, whatever, I don't like anyone under the age of 18. At least even the worst actresses in the world can still be entertaining as long as they're of legal consenting age for less-then-fine flesh films! But children, they've got small hands, they can get to places that adults can't, which makes them perfect for changing them hard-to-get-to rat traps and handle dangerous materials that fall behind the fridge... I'm of course talking about William Perry, not the appliance. Why? It's just funnier that way, imagining a poor little kid stuffed between Perry's roles of sweaty man tit to recover a cheese puff he dropped in his ass crack. It's that, or play stand in for the cheese flavored confection...