Guillermo Del Toro writing and directing tales that shine a more humanistic gaze upon fantasy creatures in the middle of a large-scale war seems to serve the auteur filmmaker well if his 2006 classic Pan's Labyrinth and the subject of this review, The Devil's Backbone, are any indication. For the premise of the latter film, Del Toro, along with David Munoz and Antonio Trashorras, have concocted a tale about orphan Carlos (Fernando Tielve) being dropped off at an orphanage in the middle of the Spanish Civil War. Here, Carlos finds himself the target of constant bullying by the orphans who have been held here for far longer than he has, though this bullying does result in Carlos making a major discovery.
