Film / The Devil's Backbone

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1939, Spain.

The Spanish Civil War enters its final stage. Casares (Federico Luppi) and Carmen (Marisa Paredes), both supporters of the Second Republic cause, operate a small orphanage in a remote part of Spain, along with the groundskeeper Jacinto and a teacher, Conchita. Casares and Carmen keep a large cache of gold to help support the treasury of the Republican loyalists, making this remote site a frequent target of Franco's troops; an unexploded bomb waits to be defused in the orphanage's courtyard.

When a small boy named Carlos arrives there, he believes that he is only staying until his father returns from the war. However, Carlos is about to learn that more than the living dwell here, as he starts seeing an apparition he cannot explain, and hears tales of a boy named Santi who disappeared the day the bomb showed up.

The Devil's Backbone (Spanish title: El espinazo del diablo) is a 2001 Mexican/Spanish Gothic Horror film written and directed by Guillermo del Toro. It stars Fernando Tielve, Íñigo Garcés, and Eduardo Noriega. del Toro has stated on the DVD that, along with Hellboy, this was his most personal project. Has a "sister film" in Pan's Labyrinth, and according to del Toro his Pinocchio works as a third installment.

In 2013, it was added to The Criterion Collection, and its spine number is 666!

Not to be confused with the 1970 Spaghetti Western The Deserter, which was released in the US as The Devil's Backbone.

The Devil's Backbone contains examples of:

• Accidental Murder: Jacinto got too rough and caused Santi's death, but tries to wake the dead boy up and has a few moments of panic after realizing what he's done.
• And This Is for...: Carlos says "For Santi" just before he pushes Jacinto into the cellar pool.
• Anyone Can Die: Of the major named characters, only Carlos and Jaime survive along with a few other orphans.
• Big Bad: Jacinto, especially when it's revealed he killed Santi and was solely planning on killing the orphans and burning the orphanage down.
• Black Eyes of Crazy: Subverted. While local Creepy Child Santi has eyes with black sclerae and pale bluish irises and haunts the orphanage, he's not particularly Ax-Crazy, as he only wants to avenge his death at the hands of Jacinto, who, as the real villain of the story, wants to make off with the orphanage's hidden cache of gold, the orphans be damned.
• Blood Is Squicker in Water: The water in the cellar pool turns reddish after Jacinto throws Santi in it. The visual effect is mirrored in the climax when the children retaliate against Jacinto by throwing him into the same pool.
• Boarding School of Horrors: In a sense: the orphanage barely manages to hold on, but the deconstruction here is that the orphan workers (especially Casares) are good people (aside from Jacinto) with their own flaws and the like.
• Bookends: The film begins and ends with the dead Casares musing on the nature of ghosts.
• The Bully: Jaime bullies Carlos throughout the first half of the film.
• Chekhov's Gun: Carmen's prosthetic leg. She hides the gold in it.
• Chekhov's Lecture: Who knew that learning how prehistoric hunters took down larger prey would come in handy later?
• Child Hater: Jacinto treats the boys in the orphanage with contempt and nothing else, often intimidating and even physically hurting them (both because they unintentionally get close to his plans to steal the gold, and for kicks). For example, after he stumbles upon Carlos saving Jaime in the cellar pool, he angrily demands what the boys were doing in there and even nicks Carlos in the cheek with his knife for answers.
• Children Are Innocent: Deconstructed. While the orphans like most of the things children like, they prove to be a complex bunch and ultimately quite capable of taking down Jacinto.
• Children Forced to Kill: The surviving orphans, aware that Jacinto will murder them whether or not he finds the gold, resolve to kill him first, successfully luring him into the cellar and catching him off-guard, stabbing him with makeshift spears and pushing him into the pool to drown.
• Closest Thing We Got: Carlos is instructed in the beginnings of basic medical knowledge by Dr. Casares. He later is designated as an unofficial medic for the surviving boys after Casares is badly injured in the explosion and uses what strength he has left to keep an eye out for Jacinto.
• Cradling Your Kill: Jacinto hugs Conchita while stabbing her to death.
• Creepy Child: Santi has eerily pale skin and dark eyes and, as an Undead Child, generally spends his time stalking the orphanage grounds giving everyone the heebie-jeebies.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Santi, who's more or less a creepy ghost… but at the same time, doesn't seek to harm anybody (except Jacinto) and only wishes to avenge his murder.
• Death by Irony: Doubling as Death by Materialism. In a fitting twist of fate, Jacinto meets his demise in the same manner he executed Santi – by drowning in the pool, bringing his violent arc full circle. To pour salt on the wound, Jacinto is weighted down by the bars of gold in his pockets – the treasure he's spent many years searching for – long enough for Santi to finish the job.
  • Somewhat Truth in Television: real-life Turkish wrestler Yusuf Ismail famously died when the ocean liner he was travelling on went down and his money belt, filled to the brim with $8-10,000 in gold coins, dragged him to the bottom of the ocean.
• Death by Materialism: Due to having so much weight on him from the gold he carried on his waist in a tight knot, Jacinto is unable to swim to the surface before Santi gets to him.
• Death of a Child: Santi was murdered by Jacinto in order to keep his search for the gold a secret. Jacinto later sets off an explosion in the orphanage that kills several of the boys.
• Defiant to the End: After running into him in the desert, Conchita refuses to apologize to Jacinto and lets him kill her instead.
• Dies Wide Open: Casares dies from wounds he suffered during the explosion, while protecting the orphanage. Carlos gently shuts his still-staring eyes.
• Dirty Coward: Jacinto, who practically slinks out of the orphanage with his tail between his legs after one solid blow from Carmen's cane. Instead, he sneaks back in and starts a fire that kills nearly everyone in the orphanage.
• Downer Ending: The teachers and a number of boys are dead, and the remaining boys have no choice but to venture out into the desert for help – where they'll most likely die as well, forgotten by all. More sad when Jaime and Carlos are both seen in Pan's Labyrinth… where they both die. Del Toro confirmed it is them at that. And given Casares' musings on the nature of ghosts, he, Santi, and implicitly everybody else killed in the vicinity are likely trapped in the abandoned, ruined orphanage forever as spirits.
• Dramatic Dislocation: The child with the goggles suffers a dislocated foot while jumping from a window. Carlos relocates the foot with a Sickening "Crunch!" sound.
• Even Evil Has Standards: As Jacinto plots to eliminate the remaining children, his two ruthless accomplices balk at the plan and abandon him, illustrating that even the wicked have their limits.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Despite initially being hostile to one another, Carlos and Jaime become this as the film goes along.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Near the beginning, the headmistress shows the children a picture of a bunch of Ice Age hunters killing a mammoth with spears, and comments that back in the day, people had to cooperate and work in groups in order to survive. Later, the kids manage to overpower physically superior Jacinto by outnumbering him and attacking him with improvised spears.
  • When the characters are preparing to leave the orphanage, Carmen remarks that her artificial leg feels heavier than usual. It's because she hid the gold inside it.
  • Jacinto's intense outbursts, harsh, serious disposition, and rough treatment of the boys.
  • Casare tells the children near the end that he'll keep watch and never leave this place. Then he dies and becomes a ghost, forever haunting the orphanage.
• Genre Savvy: Unlike characters in most Hollywood ghost stories, it actually occurs to Carlos to simply ask the ghost what it is he wants. He wants revenge on Jacinto.
• Ghostly Goals: Santi just wants his murder uncovered and avenged.
• Give Me a Sign: Carlos pleads with a bomb for a sign regarding Santi's whereabouts. As a gift ribbon from the bomb's tail is whisked away by the wind, it leads him to an ajar door where he finally discovers Santi.
• Goggles Do Nothing: One of the children at the orphanage sports aviator goggles purely for their aesthetic appeal, underscoring a desire for adventure amidst the harsh realities of their lives.
• Hats Off to the Dead: In the nearby town, Casares removes his hat in a respectful gesture when he sees the rebels lined up against a wall about to be executed.
• He Knows Too Much: The reason Jacinto (accidentally) killed Santi. He didn't want anyone to know he was looking for the gold and was trying to intimidate him into staying quiet.
• Hero Killer: Other than Casares' contact, who is caught and killed by the Francoists halfway through the film, every character who dies in the movie is killed by Jacinto. Including Jacinto.
• Hope Spot: Conchita walks for miles in the blistering heat for help before flagging down a car… driven by Jacinto, who's returning to the orphanage with his cronies to retrieve the gold.
• Hot for Student: Jacinto has been having an affair with his principal since he was barely a teenager.
• I'm Cold... So Cold...: Carmen mentions feeling cold when Casares finds her severely injured after the explosion. Moments later, she succumbs to her wounds.
• It's Personal: Jaime loathes Jacinto for killing Santi and Conchita, and is the first one to stab him when the boys lure him into their trap and attack.
• Kick the Dog: Jacinto dropping a lit cigarette butt on the ground is treated as an Establishing Character Moment.
• Looks Like Cesare: Santi has dark hair, black eyes with extra black eyeliner, and very pale, almost porcelain-like skin (indeed, his head injury looks more like cracked ceramic than anything organic, which makes him look like a Creepy Doll too.) His appearance reflects how, unlike the other kids of the orphanage, this one is dead.
• MacGuffin: The gold that Jacinto is after serves as the driving force behind the plot.
• Meaningful Name: Jacinto is the Spanish form of Hyacinth. In Greek mythology, Hyacinth was a youth loved by the god Apollo. This reflects Jacinto's relationship with Principal Carmen.
• My Greatest Failure: Jaime saw Jacinto kill Santi and toss him into the pool, but didn't do anything because he was too afraid of Jacinto and can't swim.
• Never Bring a Gun to a Knife Fight: A variation. Despite being armed with a double-barreled shotgun, Jacinto is defeated by a bunch of kids wielding handmade spears forged from long sticks.
• Number of the Beast: A meta example: When this film was released by The Criterion Collection, it was Spine #666.
• Off-into-the-Distance Ending: The movie concludes with the remaining boys walking out of the orphanage gate and into the distance towards an uncertain future.
• Once More, with Clarity: The scenes from the beginning with Jaime discovering the dying Santi and Santi being dropped into the pool are shown in more detail, revealing what had actually happened.
• Orphanage of Fear: Not intentionally, at least. Mostly it's due to the haunting and Jacinto's sabotage.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Santi is caught in an existential loop until he can avenge his death.
  • According to Word of God on the (American release) DVD commentary, he is still in an existential loop after the end of the film. Also, the opening narration poses the question, what is a ghost? and one of the following lines suggests an insect trapped in amber. So presumably, all ghosts exist in that way.
• People Jars: Pickled fetuses with the titular deformity^note The condition is actually called spina bifida. It wasn't properly understood in the medical world until the mid-to-late '30s. Despite it having a real, physical cause, in small Spanish towns it was still considered a sign from God that the children were not meant to live or that their parents had some grave sin on their souls. Hence the name, devil's backbone. The doctor makes a bit of supplementary income by selling the brine from the jars to superstitious locals who believe it to be a cure for impotence.
• Percussive Maintenance: Conchita struggles to get the radio to work in the yard. Jacinto then punches the radio with his flat hand, and it miraculously starts functioning.
• Precocious Crush: Jaime has a wholesome crush on Conchita. However, there's a less-than-wholesome example as well: Jacinto had an illicit sexual affair with his own teacher Carmen as a student, which he continues in adulthood.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Jacinto, a fact the film emphasizes by dressing him identically to the orphan boys.
• Red Right Hand: Red right eye, in this case. Jacinto's right eye remains noticeably swollen and bloodshot for the rest of the movie after Carmen smashes him across the face with her cane.
• Rule of Symbolism: The unexploded fascist bomb sits in the center of the courtyard. The orphanage is run by socialists, and their contact with the rebels is caught by the fascists halfway through the film. The bomb also fell the same night Santi was murdered, both of them things trapped in stasis, stuck in a moment of violence and terror forever.
• Saving the Orphanage: Subverted. Dr. Casares attempts to evacuate the orphanage before the Francoists arrive. The plan falls apart when the truck is destroyed in an explosion, sealing his fate and that of the boys.
• Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up: Jacinto works as a janitor around the orphanage and behaves like a bully despite being a fully grown adult.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After the gold turns out to not be in the safe, Jacinto's partners grow increasingly fed up and take off without him the next day – just as he finds out that Carmen stashed the gold in her prosthetic leg.
• Secret Compartment: Carmen hides the gold in her wooden leg where Jacinto later finds it. But it ultimately brings him no benefit, highlighting the futility of greed.
• Signature Item Clue: When Jacinto hands Jaime the cigar band the boy previously gifted to Conchita, Jaime immediately understands what happened.
• Smug Snake: Jacinto really is only a threat in that he's an adult, and those he oppresses and bullies are children. The moment he gets into conflict with another adult, he immediately ends up defeated and thoroughly humiliated. And in the end, he's even defeated by the children – because he fails to recognize that they've come to hate him more than they fear him.
• Stuff Blowing Up: The explosion caused by Jacinto kills many of the orphanage's occupants and destroys the truck they were planning to flee in.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Jaime is introduced as a bully, but warms up to Carlos after the latter saves his life in the cellar and refuses to rat him out to Jacinto.
• Trivial Title: The term "Devil's Backbone," which refers to a fetal deformity, surfaces in conversation but remains tangential to the main narrative, adding a layer of haunting significance to the film's theme.
• Undead Child: Santi is the ghost of a child who, as it turns out, was murdered by Jacinto after he and Jaime found Jacinto trying to uncover the orphanage's gold cache. He Looks Like Cesare, while sporting an Undeathly Pallor. He also sports some pretty nasty head injuries, reflecting how he died.
• Undeath Always Ends: Averted. This is one of the film's great tragedies.
• Would Hurt a Child: Jacinto murdered Santi to cover up his search for the hidden gold, and has no problem with threatening the other orphans too.
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: When Conchita finds Jacinto with the explosives, she grabs a gun and orders him to stop. Jacinto confidently walks towards her, assuming she won't pull the trigger. But then, a shot rings out and we see that she actually shot him in the shoulder.
• Zerg Rush: Despite being physically stronger and having a gun, Jacinto is still just one guy while the kids have numbers on their side. As a result, he’s blindsided and easily stabbed before being thrown in the pool.