The Devil's Backbone | 100 Movies Bucket List

 

I'd never heard of this film before seeing it on the bucket list, but the fact that it's directed by Guillermo Del Toro made me very intrigued about it.

I have mixed feelings about this one.

It starts in an interesting place. We don't know anything about the characters at all but we're instantly invested in Carlos's story. He's easy to follow and sympathise with.

The pacing feels slow and quick at the same time. The story itself is moving quickly, but a lot of time is spent setting the scene and allowing us to get to know the characters, which is great. The actual horror elements start slowly, which allows them to ramp up over time.

But it does end up feeling longer than it is. There are definitely parts in the middle that don't feel 100% needed to tell the story.

The horror elements are also quite few and far between, at least for the first half of the movie.

The most interesting thing about the film is the characters. The story itself is somewhat interesting, but if you're not interested in the characters then you probably won't be interested in anything else either.

But thankfully, the characters are great, and played really well. The child actors in particular are all fantastic.

I feel like the story lost something when it became more about the adults than the kids. It became kind of convoluted and went too deeply into stories that the audience doesn't care about. For the most part, we're here to watch a ghost story.

Overall, as much as I didn't dislike the film, I'm not sure I'd personally include it in a list of classic horror movies.