Guillermo Del Toro's The Devil's Backbone is a really cool ghost story with an extraordinary human and political dimension.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 14, 2014

Del Toro's elegant pacing and gothic touches imbue the proceedings with a cool mystery.

| Oct 7, 2013

It's a horror flick, and a creepily good one, that also functions as an allegory of the war that still haunts Spain seven decades later.

| Oct 7, 2013

The Devil's Backbone augments its abundant creepiness with an equally powerful poignancy.

| Oct 7, 2013

Though it fails in its final reels to capitalize on its early promise, pic is still stylish, accomplished and tremendously enjoyable fare.

| Oct 18, 2008

An entertaining and atmospheric revenge tale.

| Sep 24, 2007

So much better than Del Toro's studio efforts, with a masterful command of sound and and colour that is breathtaking.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 30, 2006

If only for its technical aspects, this would rate as a pleasurably superior supernatural psychological thriller, with polished but subtle special effects, painterly, atmospheric cinematography and vivid performances.

| Jun 24, 2006

[An] elegant, spooky story.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 10, 2003

A well-crafted, white-knuckle cinematic journey.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 20, 2002

[Del Toro] finds real substance in shadows and whispers, in the terrors that reside at the back of the mind.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 10, 2002

The work of a great stylist with a uniquely disturbing attraction to, and vision of, the frontier between life and death.

| Mar 3, 2002

Backbone is a creeper, but with so much more on its mind than recent examples of the genre it almost hurts to make the comparison.

| Feb 22, 2002

Creepy and compelling and beautifully shot.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 24, 2002

[Del Toro] understands how war can bring out the strangeness in people's perceptions; fear, as the patriarch played by Federico Luppi says, makes you see things.

Full Review | Jan 22, 2002

It builds, not so much logically as viscerally, until you feel you can't escape.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 11, 2002

A ghost story that's not only evocative and original, it's a pleasure to watch.

| Jan 10, 2002

Del Toro's directorial sure-handedness makes you settle back for an elegantly creepy ride that has some shockingly unsafe stretches.

| Dec 21, 2001

It's fun to watch Del Toro confront death and fear with such energy and humor.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 21, 2001

A carefully wrought, atmospheric tale that takes its ghosts seriously and treats its audience with respect.

Full Review | Dec 21, 2001