Extras: Director and cinematrographer commentary,
making-of featurette, storyboard comparisons,
theatrical trailers, scene selections, interactive
menus.
Director:
Guillermo del Toro
Screenplay:
Guillermo del Toro, Antonio Trashorras and David Munoz
Cast:
Jacinto: Eduardo Noriega
Carmen: Marisa Paredes
Casares: Federico Luppi
Jaime: Inigo Garces
Carlos: Fernando Tielve
Conchita: Irene Visedo
Alma: Berta Ojea
El Puerco (Pig): Fransisco Maestre
Marcelo: Jose Manuel Lorenzo
Santi: Junio Valverde
The back of the box
touts this is the Spanish equivalent of
The Sixth Sense
or The Others. I would have to agree with them but it should have said
that it is better than them. The Devil's Backbone succeeds
where Sixth Sense failed in providing a sense of fear
in everyone. Everyone in the film is scared no matter
what they show. Most are afraid of a living man but
the children are afraid of both the man and the ghost.
The Devil's Backbone tells the story of a boy's school
in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. A young boy
named Carlos is suddenly left there against his will.
During his first day he encounters the school bully
named Jaime. Throughout the film though he sees a
ghost who seems like a child and Carlos becomes
curious. He finally discovers that it is a child, a
child that "ran away" from the school named Santi.
Carlos befriends the bully who reveals the death of
Santi. The kids are all afraid of caretaker, Jacinto, who
has a plan of his own as there is gold buried within
the school.
I don't want to tell you too much even
though I might have. It's a very good film and it's
too bad this wasn't a wide release or anything because
it deserves the same ammount of success of The Sixth Sense or The Others.
Into the disc. The picture is very good. I was
suprised at how bright it was and how the dark scenes
were very black. I expected a lot of compression
artifacts in the dark scenes but there were none. The scenes
where the school is in darkness look very good. There
were also some scenes where the desert and a clear
blue sky were shown that looked great. This is
probably one of the best transfers I've seen since
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The only gripe is that I noiced compression artifacts in one scene. ONE SCENE
which was only a few seconds so I'm not going to dock it at all.
The sound on the disc is also very good. My only gripe
is that they should have included an english dub as
well since alot of people don't really like to "read"
a film. I only say this because I want this movie to
reach a larger audience than it might. But the Spanish
track is great. There are a lot of vibrations when the
ghost is around which are conveyed well and whispers
and such. A very good track from Columbia.
The extras are suprising as well. Normally when
foriegn movies are released on DVD they have no extras
at all. The Brotherhood of the Wolf is being released
here on October 1st and it has none but does include an
English-dubbed dialogue track at least. The commentary features del Toro
and the cinematographer, while the making-of featurette (subtitled) is very
interesting. It also includes storyboards and trailers as well.
Overall, I was very suprised by this film. The Devil's
Backbone was the first Spanish film I've ever seen and
it was a very good one at that. This disc is definitely worth checking out.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
