El Espinazo del Diablo (The Devil's Backbone) (2001)

When watching Guillermo Del Toro’s third feature film, The Devil’s Backbone, the promise of the richly conceived Pan’s Labyrinth is apparent in many details: the handsome photography, the Gothic ornamentation, the simultaneously grim and humane sensibility of the storyteller, the imagination.

And what an imagination Del Toro has. With the recent passing of Stan Winston, I’ve been more conscious of the contributions of creature puppetry and the vast superiority of tactile monsters over computer-generated ones. Del Toro primarily provides the former - memorable movie monsters that are not superimposed over the actual settings, but dwell and lurk, very real, within the walls of his gothic-noir architecture. The more often better than decent Hellboy (2004) has a handful of striking monsters and mutants; Blade II (2002), features the coolest cinematic vampires in a while, the ones carrying the Predator mouths; and of course, there is the wobbling eyeless nightmare that is the Pale Man.

He also knows how to pick humans who carry a palpable air of brutality: Jacinto (Eduardo Noriega) is like a junior version of the sadistic Captain Vidal from Pan’s Labyrinth, and has dark, primitive features that reminded me of a much meaner version of Colin Farrell.

There is a sinister mystery at the heart of The Devil’s Backbone and it’s clear that Jacinto is at the center of it.

We are made aware that he was once an orphan at the very institution where he now works as a scowling work-hand. He says the place makes him sick, though why he stays is not revealed until a little later when we learn he is involved in a couple of conspiracies (this would be the point in the review where you might want to stop reading if you’ve not seen the film), one of which is producing supernatural consequences, namely a wronged ghost who will not rest until he has brought his killer to justice. This is a familiar story ingredient in any movie that involves ghosts, usually, and, though the plot of The Devil’s Backbone may not be inspired, the film is a complete success in its cinematography (many, many images could be paused to admire for the sophistication of their composition). Example: There is a long-distance shot of Jacinto and some buddies sitting in orange-yellow light at a table in the middle to lower right side of the frame neatly arranged beside a pile of crates and barrels covered in white cloth bathed in white-blue light from the top to the bottom of the left side of the frame. Pause it and witness a painting. There is a superior artistic eye at work here, though anyone who has watched Pan’s Labyrinth knows this already.

Despite my admiration for the elegance of the look and the richness of visual creativity, The Devil’s Backbone left me wanting a deeper story. It tells a generic sort of R-rated Spanish Scooby Doo story. It has some delightfully perverted details (the headmistress's artificial leg, the deformed fetuses marinating in jars of rum...

...rum with which Professor Casares (Federico Luppi) fills a shot glass and downs) that add particular flavor and idiosyncratic humor, but the visionary ghoulishness of Pan's Labyrinth is still developing.

In one of my favorite movie images of the year, Del Toro plants an un-detonated megaton bomb face down in the ground of the courtyard of the orphanage. Not subtle, but some of the greatest movie images are not subtle (Charles Foster Kane leaning grandly over a podium with a 30-foot tall banner of his face towering behind him). The bomb sticking obstinately in the air is not only a singular, potentially iconic image, but also a potent symbol for a location simmering with dark secrets lying dormant.

Those dark secrets, regrettably, are disappointing; the underwhelming nature of the film comes from the story suggesting an epic, expansive evil with its setting and often mighty images (the bomb, the jarred fetuses and the symbol of the “Devil’s backbone”) and then revealing the evil as being merely the accidental death of one of the boys at the orphanage at the hands of a greedy, amoral young work-hand. Jacinto becomes much worse than simply amoral as the film goes along, but regardless, any possibilities for communicating a larger allegory offered by those mighty images is lost once the film simply reduces the possibilities to the boys tussling with Jacinto and two thug friends of his.

Another way to regard the wasted symbol of the upright bomb is to pretend it represents Del Toro’s ability: it is certainly already there, waiting, but it has yet to erupt into anything spectacular.


Grade: B

Session 9 (2001)

Shot in high-definition video and featuring David Caruso in a major role, Session 9 can often feel like a made for television horror film on the USA network. Unusual for a shitty TV movie though is the much better than average performance of Scottish actor Peter Mullan (who played “Mother Superior” in Trainspotting). The film invites the viewer to study Mullan; what is noticeable immediately is the incongruity between his brutish physique and his gentle face. His character, Gordon, is tired; strangely, instead of being buoyed by the recent birth of his infant daughter, he seems troubled and lethargic. Of course, this could just be the natural results of being a new father: sleepless nights due to the infant crying, etc. But the camera considers him with ominous angles, lingering, suggesting that this is a draining of spirit, not just a lack of sleep.

Mullan’s worn-down susceptibility makes him perfect for a man who could be inspired to commit mad, desperate acts. Like the protagonist of a certain monumental little horror film directed by Stanley Kubrick, Gordon’s fragile psyche starts housing bad ideas influenced by a sinister building. The building is a defunct mental hospital.

Perhaps I’m being picky, but I didn’t think the dilapidated architecture and crumbling interiors were photographed or dwelled on to utilize their fullest potential. Other than a sinister hallway with a chair sitting insinuatingly at the farthest end, opportunities for establishing dread through atmosphere are neglected in favor of jolting sound effects, which punctuate the story regardless of whether or not they are required in the context of the moment. There are many such cheap tricks employed to frighten: one of the men on the crew, Mike (Stephen Gevedon, who co-wrote the screenplay) tells a story about one of the female patients at the institution who claimed that her father would rape her three times a week, sometimes doing so while wearing a black robe. Other times, the father would drive her out to a field where the rest of her family was waiting in black robes. Incestuous ritualistic blood orgies would ensue, involving lots of creative depravity. It has nothing to do with Mary Hobbes, the ex-patient who is at the heart of Session 9, rendering his little story gratuitous. It might have been disgusting if it had not been so transparently eager to disgust, a juvenile impulse common in people who like to boast how jaded they are. You got a fucked up story about cannibalistic necrophiliacs? Well, I got a story about shit-eating quadriplegic serial killers. Urban legends and tales of freaks and transgressions are effective when they are called upon later by a film, such as the horrifying tale of Charles Grady, or folklore about disappeared children made to stand in the corner. But here, Mike’s little story is self-contained and serves a cheap purpose.

Brad Anderson, co-writer and director of Session 9, says in his commentary, “Good old-fashioned scary movies are harder to find these days. You couldn’t have made The Exorcist [1973] today with that script and that kind of meticulous character development.” If he’s suggesting that Session 9 likewise achieves meticulous character development, then he is sadly mistaken. Aside from Gordon, the other four crewmembers are thinly-conceived stock characters:

Phil is the mean ball-buster

Hank (Josh Lucas) is the plot device used to create tension with Phil (Hank stole Phil’s girlfriend, you see)

Mike is the smart one (we know he’s smart because we see him reading during his lunch break)

and Jeff (Brendan Sexton III) is the dumb new guy.


Most of the dialogue is exposition, and it is especially laughable when it involves Phil and Hank’s feud. Standard exchange:
Hank: “I only fuck Amy to beat on Phil.”
Phil: “Fuck you Hank. Eat shit and die.”
Hank: “That’s what Amy does to me…when I have sex with her.”
Phil: “Keep it up fucker.”
Hank: “I do get it up. That’s why she’s with me now. I’m having sex with your girlfriend, which you do not like.”
All the while I was nervously thinking, “Those guys have to work in close proximity to one another. Tense.”

Later Hank disappears and the film attempts to trick us into thinking Phil has killed him, you know, because they’ve been telling each other to fuck off the whole movie. In addition to David Caruso’s often inappropriate over-intensity, there’s some unfortunate unintentional comedy: the recordings of the talk therapy sessions that a psychiatrist conducted with Mary Hobbes seem cartoonishly contrived. The doctor’s voice sounds fake and unnecessarily malevolent while Mary’s is overly hysterical. Mary suffers from multiple personality disorder, and changes her voice on the recording to suit each. You’d expect the voices of her multiple personalities, “The Princess,” “Billy,” and “Simon” to be silly, but the voice of “Billy” is sort of disquieting and the voice of “Simon” is the most disturbingly evil voice I think I’ve heard in quite a while. In fact, Mary does not reveal “Simon” until the final recorded session

...the eponymous 9th, where “Simon” describes what it was that caused Mary to be institutionalized in the first place. The potent capturing of this evil must be credited to the person who did the voice-work for “Simon.” Brad Anderson must also be credited for putting the voice over a terrifying nightmare Gordon has. And the final words of the film are chilling.


The film’s amateurish qualities should not be forgiven, especially when considering the squandered greatness of the premise. However, Peter Mullan’s performance and the evil voice of “Simon” combine to set Session 9 apart and deem it worthy of seeking out.


Grade: B-