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Average User Score: 9 (17 sources)

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BoredMark

-1

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This is an amazing film. The visuals are amazing and every bit of the story is rich and full of style.

This is a must-see for anyone - one of my personal favorites.

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Posted may 5, 2008 11:05 pm pt

Gas0linedream

-1

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Beautiful and poignant. Takes place during the Spanish Civil War in an orphanage full of secrets.

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Posted jun 21, 2007 2:48 am pt

LAntichristo

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Comparing to “El laberinto del fauno�, “El Espinazo del diablo� is as depressing. But it has some sort of closure which Laberinto doesn’t.

Marisa Paredes´ appearance is as always...
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Comparing to “El laberinto del fauno�, “El Espinazo del diablo� is as depressing. But it has some sort of closure which Laberinto doesn’t.

Marisa Paredes´ appearance is as always grandiose!
The kids - all of them - are so good it is disgusting!
Eduardo Noriega apart from a good actor is also so . . . he is . . . so . . . ehhm!!!
Federico Luppi (who is also the King, in “El Laberinto del fauno�, is very touching. The sort of bloke you want to have for grandpa.
Pretty movie! And of course sad! Almodovar produced this one and you can defiantly see, smell and taste his touch!
The photography is filthily impressive. The effects really nice made without exaggerations and over-computerised **** As for realism, well, there is an ankle-breaking scene that has scared me for life!

MUST SEE MUST SEE MUST SEE!

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Posted may 30, 2007 5:26 am pt

• [+] Entertainment Weekly
  
  91
  del Toro builds excitement, dread, and melodrama in equal layers.

  by Lisa Schwarzbaum | Read Full Review »
• [+] Seattle Post-Intelligencer
  
  91
  What gives the story resonance is the tenderness and sacrifice and even innocence del Toro reveals amid the savagery.

  by Sean Axmaker | Read Full Review »
• [+] LA Weekly
  
  90
  Here is a ghost story so dynamic you could call it a ghost poem.

  by F. X. Feeney | Read Full Review »
• [+] Los Angeles Times
  
  90
  With the ambitious and ominous The Devil's Backbone, Del Toro rises to a new level of accomplishment, adding history and politics to his distinctive blend.

  by Kevin Thomas | Read Full Review »
• [+] New Times (L.A.)
  
  80
  The sensitive art-house viewer should be warned: Though slow-moving at first, the film ends in explosions and violent death, with a level of sadism that will undoubtedly prove too intense for some viewers.

  by Luke Y. Thompson | Read Full Review »
• [+] TV Guide
  
  80
  Brooding ghost story is rich with psychological and political implications that never obscure its fundamental creepiness.

  by Maitland McDonagh | Read Full Review »
• [+] Wall Street Journal
  
  80
  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.

  by Joe Morgenstern | Read Full Review »
• [+] Washington Post
  
  80
  This film is much more atmospheric; it builds, not so much logically as viscerally, until you feel you can't escape. Lurid and overdone as it is, it's still a real disturber of the peace.

  by Stephen Hunter | Read Full Review »
• [+] Village Voice
  
  80
  The movie is an expert, sunlit chiller audaciously predicated on an unquiet historical memory: "What is a ghost?"

  by J. Hoberman | Read Full Review »
• [+] Washington Post
  
  80
  Del Toro has made a ghost story that's not only evocative and original, it's a pleasure to watch.

  by Desson Thomson | Read Full Review »
• [+] Chicago Reader
  
  80
  An entertaining and atmospheric revenge tale.

  by Martin Rubin | Read Full Review »
• [+] The New York Times
  
  80
  Mr. del Toro provokes your screams and shudders, but he also earns your tears.

  by Dana Stevens | Read Full Review »
• [+] Austin Chronicle
  
  78
  Is nothing if not exquisitely detailed: It's like a blood orange that del Toro spends the film seductively unpeeling, revealing layer upon layer of meaning and pathos.

  by Kimberley Jones | Read Full Review »
• [+] Chicago Sun-Times
  
  75
  The Devil's Backbone has been compared to "The Others," and has the same ambition and intelligence, but is more compelling and even convincing.

  by Roger Ebert | Read Full Review »
• [+] Philadelphia Inquirer
  
  75
  Creepy and compelling and beautifully shot, The Devil's Backbone is a tale of the supernatural that feels completely natural. Its realness is what makes it so scary.

  by Steven Rea | Read Full Review »