The Devil's Backbone

Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: November 21, 2001

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

78	METASCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

100

The GuardianSteve Rose

The political and the supernatural come together beautifully (and violently), and the unsentimental portrayal of childhood is refreshing, with terrific performances from the boy actors. It’s altogether a supremely satisfying tale. Read full review

Lisa Schwarzbaum

Del Toro builds excitement, dread, and melodrama in equal layers. Read full review

Sean Axmaker

What gives the story resonance is the tenderness and sacrifice and even innocence del Toro reveals amid the savagery. Read full review

F. X. Feeney

Here is a ghost story so dynamic you could call it a ghost poem. Read full review

Kevin Thomas

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. Read full review

Ed Gonzalez

With The Devil's Backbone, Del Toro pulls an Amenábar by dishing out sophisticated war commentary with bone-chilling dread. Read full review

Staff [Not Credited]

A gutsy, first-rate, full-blooded ghost story, as elegant as it is eerie and brilliantly realised. Blending terror with tenderness, Guillermo Del Toro has crafted something both traditional and original: a sun-kissed gothic horror. Read full review

EmpireColin Kennedy

Building slowly from a stately start, Del Toro manages to unite all his disparate elements - ghosts and gold, infidelity and politics - for a devastating final reel. The command of sound and colour is breathtaking. Read full review

Martin Rubin

An entertaining and atmospheric revenge tale. Read full review

New Times (L.A.)Luke Y. Thompson

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. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh

Brooding ghost story is rich with psychological and political implications that never obscure its fundamental creepiness. Read full review

Joe Morgenstern

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.

A.O. Scott

Mr. del Toro provokes your screams and shudders, but he also earns your tears. Read full review

J. Hoberman

The movie is an expert, sunlit chiller audaciously predicated on an unquiet historical memory: "What is a ghost?" Read full review

Desson Thomson

Del Toro has made a ghost story that's not only evocative and original, it's a pleasure to watch. Read full review

Stephen Hunter

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. Read full review

Kimberley Jones

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. Read full review

Robert K. Elder

Fine ensemble performances and a tight balance of the supernatural against the historical make The Devil's Backbone a well-crafted, white-knuckled cinematic journey. Read full review

Andrew Sarris

There is much violence in The Devil’s Backbone , but there is also catharsis and redemption. As ghost movies go, The Devil’s Backbone is much less self-indulgent than the wildly overrated The Others. Read full review

Rene Rodriguez

After a leisurely first half, The Devil's Backbone becomes utterly spellbinding, its tension mounting in steady increments, its story taking one dark turn after another, and its bittersweet resolution destined to haunt you long after you've left the theater.

Edward Guthmann

The film doesn't explore the nature of ghosts, as it promises to initially, but it's fun to watch Del Toro confront death and fear with such energy and humor. Read full review

Jay Carr

A seductively corrosive horror story that also potently suggests the ways war can shatter childhood.

Steven Rea

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.