El Espinazo Del Diablo - aka - The Devil's Backbone (2001)

I was honestly surprised that I enjoyed watching “The Devil’s Backbone” now than when I first saw it several years ago. It’s not nearly as gut-wrenching as “Pan’s Labyrinth” is but it is still a powerful movie about children having to deal with their new realities as the result of the Spanish Civil War. It is a ghost story and although you see the ghost quite often, he is not the main focus of the movie. The story is about the living and how to live during the time of war.

"The Devil's Backbone" is an engrossing ghost story that takes place in a far off school that has become a refuge for orphaned children of parents that have been killed or are still fighting in the Spanish Civil War. It begins when Carlos is brought to the school, unaware that his father has died. He becomes friends with two of the other boys there but immediately attracts the attention of the resident bully, Jaime. Carlos causes trouble, or takes the blame of various acts, as he tries to settle in. At night, he begins to hear things, see shadows, and finally discovers that the school is haunted by a ghost named Santi and eventually learns that Jaime knows how Santi died. 

The movie is also about Jacinto, a former orphan who grew up at the school and his attempts to steal gold ingots that are hidden there and are meant to fund the Republicans efforts in the war. He uses the school’s principal Carmen, preying on her weakness for affection while making false promises to the school’s young teacher Conchita. His selfish acts, as well as the approaching enemy forces, sets of a violent series of events that will affect the school forever.

Favorite moment – When Carlos first walks into the school yard and sees that undetonated bomb in the courtyard. It is a quiet and foreboding image but brings a smile to his innocent face. From this scene you realize that as violent or horrible as the situation might be, it’s filtered through the eyes of the innocent children in the school.

Eskalofrio (2008)

"Eskalofrío", also known as “Shiver” in the US, is an entertaining movie about a high school student named Santi who is forced to move from the city to a small village in the mountains in order to have less exposure to the sun; he suffers from a server case of photophobia and had to deal with excessive bullying at school. Santi’s transition into the new school still involved bullies but it included the instant friendship of a younger boy and the interest of a girl in his class. During Santi’s second day at school, his young friend is called out as a liar when he tells the other kids that he saw a monster as he was walking the home the day before. Santi, the young boy, and an old student go into the forest with a hunting rifle to find the beast. They find something but run in different directions. The boy with the gun is killed and Santi becomes one of the main suspects by the cute girl’s father, the town’s lead detective. More murders take place and Santi is in the area each time. To clear his name, he does research on the people who had lived in his house before his mom and himself. He finds out that it was a home to a “wild” girl named Angela. He firmly believes she’s responsible and goes out to find the truth about what had happened to her.

Favorite moment – The ending wraps everything up nicely and answers all of the questions that needed to be answered.