L’ÉCHINE DU DIABLE

by Guillermo del Toro (El espinazo del diablo, Spain, 2001, 1h46)

starring Marisa Paredes, Eduardo Noriega, Federico Luppi, Fernando Tielve

Upon the death of his father in the middle of the Civil War, 12-year-old Carlos is placed in a remote boarding school in the middle of nowhere which takes in the orphans of Republican militants. Facing the hostility of his new classmates, the little boy slowly comes to the realisation that the walls of this impressive building conceal some very strange secrets. The successful injection of fantasy and the supernatural into a historical context.