Status: In The Can GDT's Role: Writer, Director, Producer
Summary During the Spanish Civil War, an orphaned boy winds up at a remote boarding school where disturbing ghostly appearances occur.
Cast and Crew Directed by Guillermo Del Toro
Writing Credits:
Guillermo del Toro, Antonio Trashorras & David Muñoz
Eduardo Noriega .... Jacinto
Marisa Paredes .... Carmen
Federico Luppi .... Casares
Fernando Tielve .... Carlos
Íñigo Garcés .... Jaime
Irene Visedo .... Conchita
What GDT Had To Say "Devil's Backbone I adore. It's a movie where I was left alone. It is also the most difficult hybrid of genres -part war movie, part melodrama, part ghost story- and I could -and I do- talk for hours about it. Not for everyone but like it or not it's my movie 100%."
"I think the ghost serves as a horrifying but ultimately pitiful reminder. That's why the ghost in the movie breaks the cardinal rule in horror films: less is more. I tried to show the ghost as much as I could in the film so that by the end you're not fearing the dead so much as the treachery of the living. It starts as a ghost story, but it's meant to be a war story with a ghost in it. If you read the seminal gothic romances there are huge elements of melodrama with a supernatural strand running through them--but they're much more than just the accumulation of, say, twenty-five supernatural occurrences or something. Look at a beautiful Gothic romance like Wuthering Heights--it opens and closes like a strange ghost story, but ghosts are not the main thrust of the story."
(from an interview by Walter Chaw, FilmFreakCentral)
"Devil's Backbone is a film I always wanted to make, even before Cronos. It's based somewhat on my own childhood, to the extent that my early years were filled with strange episodes -- some of them violent and disturbing. When I was 11, I heard what I truly believe was a ghost's voice. I was in a room in the house that had once belonged to my late uncle, when I heard this voice, speaking softly and sighing. I recognized the voice as my uncle's. Strange, isn't it? I tried to think of a logical explanation but I couldn't. Of course, the whole thing was quite unnerving; the hairs stood up on my neck, you know? But I wasn't really scared. I was fascinated by the incredible sadness in the voice. It's not like I felt menaced or anything like that. From that experience I took the concept that the living shouldn't automatically fear the spirits of the dead. And I always wanted to make a ghost story that might convey that message."
BarnesandNoble.com, Aug 20, 2002
