REVIEW: Blu-ray Only Release: The Devil’s Backbone

Film: The Devil’s Backbone
Release date: 28th February 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 106 mins
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Marissa Paredes, Eduardo Noriega, Federico Luppi, Inigo Garces, Irene Visedo
Genre: Fantasy/Horror/Mystery/Thriller
Studio: Optimum
Format: Blu-ray
Country: Spain/Mexico

Guillermo del Toro has established himself as one of the most popular auteurs working today. With critical success for Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, his two most recent films, del Toro has a certain imagery and style associated with him. In The Devil’s Backbone, his third feature film, this style is subdued into an atmospheric and effective ghost story.

Set in the 1930s during the Spanish Civil War, The Devil’s Backbone follows the story of Carlos, a young boy who is taken to an orphanage by his revolutionary guardians after the death of his father. Located in the middle of a vast wasteland, it is home to a large number of orphan boys; an elderly lovelorn professor; a fiery principal with one leg; a former resident of the orphanage, who is now a caretaker with a nasty plan; and an ominous unexploded bomb.

As Carlos struggles to settle in with the other boys, he starts to see the ghost of a young boy wandering the orphanage, known to the others as “the one who sighs.” Jacinto, the caretaker, plots to steal some gold ingots kept by Carmen, the principal, until the “cause” needs them.

As tensions grow in the war and the orphanage, the professor Dr Casares decides they have to leave the orphanage. But Jacinto and the boy ghost have other plans…


The Devil’s Backbone is not a typical del Toro film. The director is normally known for his fantastical visions and horrific monsters, but these are absent here, replaced with a subtle spooky atmosphere. There are still hints of his trademark gruesome imagery, such as the unborn foetuses with mutated spinal cords suspended in jars in Dr Casares’ office. However, those who come to the film expecting monsters or big set pieces will be disappointed. What they will find is an effective ghost story, which builds up tension and suspense without reverting to typical horror clichés involving a child ghost.

Using subtle sound design and a visually distinctive location, del Toro creates a sense of increasing suspense as all the different parties begin to come into conflict with each other. It is no surprise that del Toro is a huge Hitchcock fan, using the unexploded bomb in the centre of the orphanage as a symbol of all the tensions simmering in the orphanage. The story builds effectively, and it soon becomes clear that the true villain of the piece is Jacinto, the callous caretaker played with menace by the excellent Eduardo Noriega. Like in most del Toro films, the monster is the man, not the beast.

The true stars of the film are the cast of children. Del Toro often manages to obtain great performances from young actors, and this film is no exception. Led by Carlos and Jaime, played by Fernando Tielve and Inigo Garces, the young ensemble create distinctive well rounded characters with the screen time they receive. They are all believable, even when the story becomes dramatic and more violent towards the end. The rest of the cast all perform admirably, whilst veteran actor Federico Luppi as Dr Casares really conveys the sense of years lost to unrequited love.

Shot by del Toro’s frequent collaborator Guillermo Navarro, the film is a visual treat. Forgoing the fantastic vistas and worlds that he normally creates, del Toro uses the location and colours to bring us into this world. Whether it’s the empty coldness of the hallways at night, or the blinding brightness of the sun during the day, each shot is arranged with meticulous detail. There are also many references to classic westerns; the famous shot from John Ford’s The Searchers is evoked several times, adding to the sense of isolation.

The state of limbo the characters seem to be in is referenced again and again, adding a deeper layer to the story and the mythology of the ghost story on show. Despite the references to Japanese horror films (the ghost design was based on recent, popular J-Horror films such as Ringu or Ju-On: The Grudge), there are no cheap scares. Everything feels necessary, and as such, when the pieces come together at the end, it is an extremely satisfying conclusion.

It seems a shame that del Toro has found success the way he has. With the big-budgeted The Mountains Of Madness due to start filming this year - Tom Cruise supposedly in the running for the lead role - it will be a long time before we have another personal film such as The Devil’s Backbone from Del Toro. Which is a shame as del Toro has proved in this film, and his earlier and later works Cronos and Pan’s Labyrinth, that he can take a genre movie and inject it with warmth, humanity and a deeper meaning.


Guillermo del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone is an excellent film. More subtle and nuanced than his Hollywood output, but with no lack of creativity or imagination. Those expecting more of an out and out horror may find that there are less kills or scares than they would expect. They will, however, find an atmospheric ghost story which makes you think. JDW

NEWS: Blu-ray Only Release: Pan's Labyrinth - Special Edition

Spanish fantasy story directed by Guillermo del Torro (Cronos) with stunning sets, shocking scenes and effects - set in the mind's eye of a lonely young girl.

Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) is a young girl in a remote mountain village in Spain in 1944 after Franco's ascension to power. To escape the upheaval and hardship her family faces (her father died in the war and her mother has been forced to re-marry to a despotic captain in Franco's fascist army), Ofelia creates a world in her mind, where she's guided by a ghastly yet kindly fawn creature.

The captain, it soon transpires, is more interested in the son Ofelia's mother is carrying than he is in either Ofelia or her mother. Mercedes (Maribel Verdú), the captain's considerate servant, and Dr. Ferreiro, the captain’s physician, are, it transpires, in league with the revolutionaries in the woods surrounding the army encampment. These resistance fighters are intent on liberating the rationed food and medicines they need.

As the increasingly manic and paranoid captain assassinates anyone who looks at him the wrong way with alarming regularity, Ofelia's secret quests set by the fawn creature to unlock the portal to another world become more and more urgent.

With its deft mixing of CGI and actual character scenes, political and social statement, Pan's Labyrinth has been referred to already as “The Citizen Kane of fantasy films.”

Film: Pan's Labyrinth - Special Edition
Release date: 28th February 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 119 mins
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Ivana Baquero, Sergi López, Maribel Verdú, Doug Jones, Ariadna Gil
Genre: Drama/Fantasy/Mystery
Studio: Optimum
Format: Blu-ray
Country: Spain/USA/Mexico

NEWS: Blu-ray Only Release: The Devil’s Backbone - Special Edition

Ghostly goings-on are the order of the day in this eerie shocker from Mexican fright meister Guillermo del Toro.

Set during the final days of the Spanish Civil War, the film takes place in remote orphanage haunted by a mysterious ghost child named Santi. The children of the orphanage are terrified of Santi, but when they learn the true circumstances of his death, they begin plotting to help him get his revenge.

Film: The Devil’s Backbone - Special Edition
Release date: 28th February 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 106 mins
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Marissa Paredes, Eduardo Noriega, Federico Luppi, Inigo Garces, Irene Visedo
Genre: Fantasy/Horror/Mystery/Thriller
Studio: Optimum
Format: Blu-ray
Country: Spain/Mexico

NEWS: Blu-ray Only Release: Cronos - Special Edition

A modern-day vampire film which re-works the ancient themes of fear and desire.

Jesus Gris (Federico Luppi) is an antique dealer who, with his grandaughter Aurora, discovers a mysterious scarab-like object at the base of an old statue. The statue's previous owner was a 16th century alchemist, and the object turns out to be the Cronos which grants the user eternal life in exchange for blood.

Intrigued, Jesus is drawn into the grip of the Cronos, and when Dieter and his nephew, Angel, hound the antique dealer, Aurora tries to save her grandfather, but she too becomes a part of the thirst for blood.

Film: Cronos - Special Edition
Release date: 28th February 2011
Certificate: 18
Running time: 92 mins
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Federico Luppi, Ron Perlman, Claudio Brook, Tamara Shanath, Margarita Isabel
Genre: Comedy/Drama/Horror/Thriller
Studio: Optimum
Format: Blu-ray
Country: Mexico

REVIEW: Blu-ray Only Release: Pan's Labyrinth

Film: Pan's Labyrinth
Release date: 19th November 2007
Certificate: 15
Running time: 120 mins
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Ivana Baquero, Ariadna Gil, Sergi López, Maribel Verdú, Doug Jones
Genre: Drama/Fantasy/History/War
Studio: Optimum
Format: Blu-ray
Country: Spain/USA/Mexico

Often revered as a landmark in contemporary world cinema, as well as establishing Guillermo del Toro as an international artistic force to reckon with, 2006’s Pan’s Labyrinth gets a presentational overhaul on Blu-ray courtesy of Optimum Releasing.

Set in Franco’s post-civil war Spain, the film revolves around Ofelia (Ivana Baquero); an 11-year-old girl obsessed with fairytales, much to the chagrin of her heavily pregnant mother Carmen (Ariadna Gill) and her new stepfather, Captain Vidal (Sergi López). Ofelia and her mother are relocated to Vidal’s rural mill-turned-military outpost so that he can be present for the birth of his heir to be.

As Vidal and his troops mop up the last pockets of leftist resistance hiding out in the nearby countryside, Ofelia befriends Mercedes (Maribel Verdú), one of Vidal’s housekeeping staff who’s secretly assisting the rebels, as well as a magical Faun creature (Doug Jones) that resides in a nearby and ancient labyrinth. The Faun informs Ofelia that she is the reincarnation of a lost princess from an underground realm and, in order to return as the kingdom’s heir, must complete three challenges before the next full moon…


Pan’s Labyrinth was very much a labour of love for its director, Guillermo del Toro (perhaps better known by some for helming the Hellboy films), who reportedly turned down multiple offers of lucrative Hollywood capital for fear of it compromising his vision. And while they say that love is blind, the film, though highly accomplished, is not without a few imperfections.

Visually, the film is a master class; the cinematography is assured yet not overly indulgent, gliding though scenes with an interesting mix of majesty and economy. This is further assisted with some very careful editing, using foreground objects such as trees and furniture to wipe from one graceful shot to the next, slipping from reality to fantasy and then back with breathtaking ease. Del Toro’s use of colour, light and, perhaps most importantly, shadow also lends the film further dark visual charm.

Performances are uniformly good, especially Baquero, who proves to be a child actor of incredible potential, and is convincing throughout, even if is the script does infrequently call for her to make some questionable/overly naïve decisions. Supporting roles are also brilliantly textured; Verdú’s Mercedes is executed with a quiet dignity, whilst López makes for a fine antagonist and an effective hate figure thanks to his character’s occasional flashes of sadistic brutality and altogether self-serving attitude. His legacy is all that matters to him, much to the detriment of his wife – a nicely pitched performance by Ariadna Gill; the controversial decision to transport her to the outpost so late in her pregnancy because “a son should be born where his father is.”

Production design is also astounding; from the subterranean labyrinth chamber, to the muddy dwelling of the Toad, to the lavishly haunting corridors and vestibules of the Pale Man’s (also played by Jones) banqueting room. The level of detail on show here should be the rule as opposed to the exception in filmmaking as, in all honesty, Pan’s Labyrinth looks and feels more original than it actually is, mostly because of its dedication to aesthetic.

The film is essentially a gothic fairytale placed in a real world setting that juxtaposes between the two, as Ofelia finds solace from the grim situation that has been thrust upon her. Many staples from that style of storytelling are present - there’s the picturesque, verdant and antiquarian locale, the young girl as protagonist, and wicked stepfather as antagonist. The inclusion of the Faun is a derived from Greek mythology, and the Pale Man’s banquet scene feels like a morality tale in itself about the perils of temptation, or a nod to Eve eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.

Del Toro’s skill at being able to blend two seemingly incompatible iconographies – the gothic fantasy and the period war drama respectively – is highly commendable, and is one of the key elements to the film’s overall success. However, it’s interesting and rather surprising how little screen time is actually dedicated to Ofelia’s fantasy adventure (only about a quarter of the film in total) as it is frequently cast aside to further the wartime drama/resistance storyline. On one hand, this serves as a fine and dynamic counterpoint to Ofelia’s fantastical psychosis, placing the narrative in grim and dangerous surroundings, which evokes a quiet and necessary tension, as well as a compelling reason for Ofelia to retreat into such imaginative recesses. On the other hand, there are occasional moments that dwell on this aspect for too long, moving the story perilously close to the usual war/resistance genre pitfalls; personified with the usual self-righteous retorts of “why do you continue putting your life in danger for a lost cause?” and “as long as [insert antagonist’s name] is still in control, we will continue to fight,” etc.

Unfortunately, those who have a solid grasp on fairytale/fable mechanics will likely second-guess certain developments in the plot. There are also some lapses of logic present within the narrative. For instance, Mercedes gives her rebel comrades the only key to the outpost’s food and medical supply store, which they promptly raid. After distracting Vidal and his men by derailing a train, they storm the camp in a very loud and un-covert manner, using the key to access the store, and subsequently leaving the lock unfastened and undamaged - letting Vidal know instantly that there’s a traitor amongst his staff. Seeing as they went in all guns blazing – or did so as they were about to make their escape – they may as well have just forced the lock to avoid suspicion. There are also a couple of missed opportunities to cut short Vidal’s micro-dictatorship that pass by without adequate justification.

Another flaw with the real world aspect of the film is its use of computer assisted violence and blood effects to mixed results. Granted, the film’s occasional moments of brutal violence serve as another necessary counterpoint to the fantasy element of the story – a wakeup call, if you will – but also come across as detached and, at times, strangely unrealistic. The film’s first violent outburst – that showcases Vidal’s uncompromising ruthlessness by stoving in a farmer’s face with the base of a wine bottle – looks particularly false, and is the weak link in an otherwise visually strong piece of filmmaking. It’s a strange creative decision, considering the great effort that’s gone into the other departments, particularly the costume and creature effects, which provide many of the film’s most memorable moments. It’s ironic, and perhaps intentional, that the violent aspects of the real-world plot appear fake and fabricated when compared to the more organic, practical effects utilised in the fantasy-world.

As for the Blu-ray presentation, it’s more than satisfactory. Detail is marvelous, allowing the eyes to revel and fully indulge in the film’s wonderful production design with no noticeable technical faults (macro-blocking, aliasing, etc). Colour reproduction is also fine, and has even improved some of the special effects: the computerized blood, for instance, appears darker that it did on DVD, as does the Toad who lives under the tree, helping them to better assimilate with their live-action surroundings. The surround sound mix is also breathtaking.


Niggles aside, Pan’s Labyrinth deserves the majority of its accolades. A strong, confident opus filled with lush imagery and engaging performances, the film is a minor masterpiece of form – although the content sometimes suffers – and works as an apt showcase for del Toro’s filmmaking talents. Pan’s Labyrinth comes recommended. MP

SPECIAL FEATURE: Splice: What’s The Worst That Can Happen?

(from left) Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody.

Feature courtesy of Optimum Releasing.

In a private, state-of-the-art lab funded by a pharmaceutical giant, two brilliantly talented young bio-engineers, Clive Nicoli and Elsa Kast, combine genetic components from different species into hybrids that could produce new disease-fighting compounds. It’s vital. It’s exciting. It’s the future. As Elsa tells Clive, it’s their job as scientists to push the boundaries. But how far?

Director Vincenzo Natali, who devoted years to developing Splice, which came to DVD on 3rd December 2010, often found it challenging to outpace the science that fuels his story. “The technology is advancing so rapidly, I think it took scientists less time to map the human genome than it took to write the script,” he jokes. “How does Splice fit into the world we live in now? I don’t even know what world that is. I don’t think anyone does. Things are changing in dramatic ways in all aspects of our civilization, culture and science, and that’s something Splice explores: our relationship to technology and the doors it unlocks. It pushes us to places we’re unable, or afraid, to go.”

“What takes place in this movie is not far from the truth,” notes Adrien Brody, who stars as Clive. “We’re living in a world in which science fiction is becoming reality, and that gives the film its weight. It’s frightening to a certain extent, to see how precarious things can be, but also exciting because there is potential for wonderful things.”

For Clive and Elsa, a power couple at home as well as in the lab, their triumphs have been widely celebrated in the media… and their errors, so far, easily erased. Having successfully spliced animal genes into superior hybrids, their logical next step would be adding human DNA to the mix, in the hope of creating a new life form higher on the evolutionary scale. But that’s not where their sponsors want to go, demanding instead that they curb their scientific ambitions in favour of something more practical and marketable. So they make a daring decision. They’ll give the company what it wants while pursuing their own agenda, conducting the most monumental experiment of their lives in secret.

That experiment becomes Dren: a startling amalgamation of arms and legs, tail and wings, with remarkably expressive eyes; a being both miraculous and horrifying, with an increasingly unpredictable range of needs and a growth rate that’s off the charts. If their first mistake was creating Dren, their second is letting her live. Says Natali, “Clive and Elsa are smarter than they are wise, and while they play with the building blocks of life, they don’t really have any deep understanding of what life is. You could say this is a coming-of-age film in that they are forced to grow up and become responsible parents, in a sense. As Dren becomes a catalyst for their own darker needs, she sets off a downward spiral of their scientific ideologies obscured by the moral imperatives of parenthood. We watch the humans turn into monsters, as the monster reveals its humanity.”

“Vincenzo has a savage imagination,” declares master storyteller and Splice executive producer Guillermo del Toro. “Splice is incredibly powerful and morally ambiguous. Both the creators and the creature are flawed. At stages the creature is innocent, then malevolent; the scientists are empathetic, then ruthless. In so many ways this story crosses the line.”

Losing their objectivity, then control of their creation, Clive and Elsa press forward with a series of decisions that will prove disastrous in ways they can’t imagine. “Just as the most dangerous part of Dren could be her human DNA, and not the animal, I think the danger in this film is not about science and where it’s leading us but about the unpredictable human element, in a way that audiences may find shocking,” proposes Sarah Polley, who stars as the driven Elsa.

Premiering at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, Splice impressed critics and enthralled audiences — among them, Joel Silver, Chairman of Dark Castle Entertainment, who felt that the timely and thought-provoking thriller was exactly the kind of film for which Dark Castle was created. Silver, an executive producer on Splice says, “This is the kind of story that goes for a visceral reaction and engages the imagination at the same time. It pulls you in and doesn’t let go. It raises questions straight out of headline news about how bio-engineering could shape the future, but also stirs up fears about the dark places in human nature that we’ve been running from forever.”

“In science fiction, those issues become epic,” observes producer Steve Hoban, whose association with the director dates back to his first film, the 1992 short Half Nelson, on which a young Natali debuted as a storyboard artist. “We’re speculating about the future: is it good, is it bad, is it scary?”

While focusing on the cutting edge of bio-engineering, Natali believes Splice also exposes a primal fantasy lying deep in the human psyche. “The notion of bonding with something not entirely human goes back to ancient myth. It has always existed and I was fascinated by the idea that those mythic concepts - mermaids, centaurs, chimeras, human hybrids that have tantalized people’s imaginations for thousands of years - could exist in the real world through new science. While Splice is very much about the vanguard of genetic research, it’s also about things that have been with us since the beginning of time.”

To help stir that emotional connection, Natali felt strongly that Dren should be portrayed by an actor rather than a computer-generated image, and cast Delphine Chanéac in the unusual role. “It pays homage to all the things one would expect in a Frankenstein kind of story but also delves into aspects of the relationship between the creators and their creation that really keeps it on a personal level, and it’s because of that I decided to have an actor play Dren. Only when it’s anatomically impossible do we use CG.”

Ultimately, he offers, “I don’t feel Splice makes a clear statement about whether the actions of Clive and Elsa are good or bad. Their mistakes in creating Dren are mostly well-intentioned. That the question of whether we are going in the right direction or the wrong direction is raised by the film, but not answered by it, is relevant, because, at this moment, I don’t think we know.”

Having made the decision to keep their star specimen alive, Clive and Elsa must now simultaneously observe and nurture her development while keeping her existence hidden. It’s a fine line they’re trying to walk, and an equally fine line for Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley to give these characters their due complexity with a measure of sympathy.

Screenwriter Doug Taylor, who, with Antoinette Terry Bryant, collaborated on the Splice script with Natali, admits, “Clive and Elsa do some reprehensible things, take gambles they shouldn’t take and behave abominably sometimes. But Sarah and Adrien are able to make even those behaviours seem understandable. Or at least forgivable.”

For Brody, it seems a matter of Clive’s talent and passion surpassing his maturity. “Clive is a genius, very successful in his field, and clearly that aspect of his life came easily. He loves his work. He believes in the power of science and is excited about its possibilities. He and Elsa are young, successful and adventurous. They receive a lot of praise and enjoy a lot of freedom and, theoretically, it’s a positive thing they’re working toward. But sometimes with that enthusiasm comes carelessness. He ends up in a situation that throws his life into a tailspin because, despite his and Elsa’s intelligence, they’re unprepared for a lot of things in life. They get carried away.”

Though similar in many ways, the two researchers harbour fundamental differences that become apparent as events escalate. Elsa drives Clive to places he likely would not go on his own. At the same time, says Polley, “It’s unlikely that Elsa could be with anyone who wasn’t totally immersed in that world. She and Clive urge each other forward; they feed off each other, both making the other more passionate about what they do. Elsa is extremely ambitious and focused, yet there is much in her past that she has not dealt with, that’s ruling her. She’s a fireball of life and energy but she pushes things to their final conclusion whether or not they are good for her or for anyone else.”

Part of what motivates Elsa is the memory of a harrowing childhood, which comes dramatically into play when her maternal instincts are aroused - then rejected - by Dren. “Dren is as much a child to Clive and Elsa as she is an experiment, and when she evolves into adulthood, that relationship becomes even more complicated,” says Natali.

“Her most human characteristics are her vulnerability and desire for companionship, but also her frustration at not getting what she wants,” screenwriter Antoinette Terry Bryant acknowledges. “This leads to rebelliousness as Dren grows into adolescence. Unfortunately, at each ‘acting out’ stage of her development, her animal DNA introduces a physical component more powerful than that of her creators — who soon learn that the more you push the envelope, the more you need to watch your back.”

Adds del Toro, “They don’t just create a monster by using DNA in an inappropriate way. They create a monster because Elsa, in particular, cannot overcome her own demons and passes them onto the ‘child.’ We not only see their anxieties and ambivalence in becoming parents, but it’s also compressed in time so that things happen in hours or days that would normally take decades. Adrien and Sarah do a tremendous job in finding emotional truth in characters that are going through such rapid transformations.”

“Sarah is heartbreaking and terrifying as Elsa, and Adrien’s performance is fantastic. He’s believable, he’s magnetic and you care about him,” says Hoban. To research their roles, the actors devoured stacks of information and logged shifts in the Centre for Cancer Genetics, Bapat Lab, at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, observing work on human cells by geneticist George S. Charames, a technical consultant on the film.

Recalling their first rehearsals, Natali says, “Adrien and Sarah really got the material — so much so that it was Adrien who came up with that fateful line of dialogue that reflects some of the story’s dark humour: ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’”

In the story, Dren is a hybrid of human and animal. In reality, she’s an artful blend of human and visual effects. But it’s Delphine Chanéac who makes her real. Dren was never intended to be a fully digital character, Natali explains. “I wanted a creature whose humanity we fall in love with. Even though we did extensive R&D on the creature development, the concept is so subtle that I felt there was no way to complete Dren without a real actor. No animator could do what Delphine does.”

Chanéac was cast in Paris prior to her formal audition. As Natali and producer Hoban made their way up Charles de Gaulle Boulevard to the Gaumont offices to begin auditions, they saw her waiting. Hoban recalls, “There was this beautiful woman standing on the sidewalk. She was spectacular but she was the first, so we continued with other candidates, and she remained the gold standard that no others could match. Not only did she have a remarkable ability to play the character from adolescent to adult, and to communicate without words, she was also deceptively strong and performed most of her own stunts.”

Without dialogue, Chanéac devised her own language of trills and purrs to express a wide range of emotion. “For me, this is a love story,” she says. “Dren wants to love and to be loved, but is kept at a distance because she is not normal. She’s quite sensitive and pure, like a child, yet very aggressive at the same time. She can do and feel what she wants to.”

Acknowledging the character’s athleticism, speed and uncommon strength, Chanéac adds, “It took a great deal of concentration to play because of the extra physical demands.” This included making accommodation for triple-jointed legs, four-fingered hands and a tail.

The actress’ stunt work focused on what stunt coordinator Plato Fountidakis (The Chronicles Of Riddick) describes as “heightening the abilities of her character.” Being a genetically altered human spliced with animal DNA, there are going to be some elements of quick and direct confrontation and extraordinary agility. We incorporated some Hong Kong-style wire work, which is basically acrobatic, with smaller, low-profile harnesses, to give her the ability to jump, perch like a bird, rotate and flip down quickly from a height.”

To complete Dren’s look, the filmmakers employed a combination of practical and visual effects, starting with Oscar®-winning special makeup and creature effects designer Howard Berger (The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe), who, along with partner Greg Nicotero, helms the renowned KNB EFX Group. Berger had previously worked with Steve Hoban on the producer’s second and third films in the Ginger Snaps series, and was enthusiastic about working with Natali and the conceptual art that had been developed, as it gave him the opportunity to do things KNB had not done before. His efforts meshed with those of C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures, toward Natali’s prime directive for realism.

“It’s an intensely technical process but, at its heart, it’s creating a being that we can believe in and relate to emotionally,” Natali says.

Chanéac’s performance informed every stage of development. “Animals can be dangerous and unpredictable and I think that’s what makes Dren so cool,” says Berger, “Delphine brought everything to the table; this character wouldn’t exist without her. Everything, from her look to her movements, which Delphine created, is very specific. She can appear both bird-like and predator-like, as well as child-like,” often in the same moment. “Vincenzo dreamed up this character but Delphine brought it to life.”

For her eyes, Berger designed ten versions from which Natali selected. They were then modified into cross-shaped pupils, in the form of oversized scleral contact lenses that cover the entire eye. Finally, in post-production, “Dren’s eyes were digitally widened slightly beyond the realm of human norms,” says Robert Munroe, C.O.R.E. Visual Effects Supervisor (The Tudors), making his fourth feature collaboration with Natali. Chanéac’s performance also influenced the younger version of Dren, another human/FX hybrid, played by Abigail Chu. As Natali details, “We grafted a digital head onto Abigail’s body and embedded Delphine’s eye motions. We played back Abigail’s scenes to Delphine and recorded her visual reactions as if she were the child Dren and then, using a new technology, translated that into data that became the digital model. It’s a subtle thing but it helped to give the character continuity.” Unlike a wholly digitized character, this fusion of flesh and animation depended upon flawless matching, Munroe explains. “Everything Delphine or Abigail did on screen locked us into matching the digital effect exactly the same way. If they’re moving or kicking up their legs, displacing the dress, we animate the creature legs the same way but we’re restricted by their movements. They only have a two-section leg but Dren has three, so how do you make them stand up? How do you make them sit down in a way that the actor isn’t?”

The adult Dren image breaks down to approximately 70% human to 30% CG and the child Dren is a 50/50 split. Eleven additional creatures were developed for the film through practical and digital effects, including various embryonic and infant stages of Dren, plus the products of Clive’s and Elsa’s earlier experimentation: two hybrid entities named Fred and Ginger.

Splice centres around the research facility where Clive and Elsa spend most of their time — a space created by Natali and production designer Todd Cherniawsky (art director, Avatar) to be both realistic and suggestive. “Vincenzo has an inclination towards balanced compositions that play on symmetry and asymmetry,” the designer says. “He likes a strong one-point perspective which essentially shoots straight down the middle of a room so that everything converges and the eye is drawn to a central point. There are certain images burned into our common knowledge of fear, whether it’s the high school corridor or the hallway in a prison. Gridding things like this creates a fear-of-the-machine theme. Low ceilings and shorter spaces make it feel as though everything was closing in on Clive and Elsa. There is always pressure on them.”

One of the lab’s pure creative departures was an imposing spherical apparatus referred to by Clive and Elsa as “Betty,” for B.E.T.I., or the theoretical Biomechanical Extrautero Thermal Incubator in which the hybrid foetus Dren gestates. At the same time, Cherniawsky states, “we wanted authenticity, not in the sense that we were making a documentary but in being sensitive to real laboratories, real scientists and real science as much as possible.” That effort involved consulting with numerous geneticists and touring working labs at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto and the University of Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, to understand how a small lab would be equipped to develop such a proto-type discovery.

Hiding Dren becomes more difficult as she grows stronger, more vocal and wilful, which necessitates a move from the couple’s lab to the basement and, from there, they are forced to confine her to the abandoned barn of Elsa’s childhood home, miles from the city. For this, the production used an existing barn outside of Toronto at Black Creek Farm. To ensure it could withstand the stresses of production, the crew pulled it apart board by board, nail by nail, removed its mortise-and-tenon and wood-peg joints, then rebuilt it with additional steel plating and extra bolting.

Working closely with award-winning cinematographer Tetsuo Nagata (La Vie En
Rose), Natali saw the action evolving from a very modernist style to something more Gothic towards the end. “Splice begins in a more clinical way, detached and not evocative of an emotion,” Natali cites. “As the psychology of the characters becomes more twisted, then it naturally follows that the camerawork becomes a little more twisted to exemplify that state of mind. The compositions become less symmetrical and a little more off-kilter as the story moves from two main characters to three. I kept the science as real as possible because there was no reason for it not to be real,” says Natali.

Not a cautionary tale in the traditional sense, Splice was principally influenced by the director’s lifelong fascination with creatures. “I’ve been obsessed with them since I can remember,” he laughingly admits. But it was a provocative and groundbreaking biological experiment known as the Vacanti Mouse that served as his direct inspiration. In 1995 Dr. Charles Vacanti and Dr. Linda Griffith-Cima demonstrated the possible future of tissue transplantation by successfully grafting a piece of synthetic material, treated with bovine cartilage cells, onto the back of a healthy mouse and ‘growing’ what appeared to be a human ear. The photographs released from that experiment, at once brilliant and grotesque, reminded Natali of “a Salvador Dali image and really sparked my interest in the field of genetic engineering,” he says.

Having conceived the idea that would become Splice around that time, Natali followed with great interest the scientific progress that seemed to be running parallel to his developing screenplay during the ensuing decade. “When I first wrote this, people weren’t talking about cloning. In 1997, the world heard about Dolly, the cloned sheep, and then, in 2001, the human genome was mapped.” Natali watched as genetic developments cast his core concept more toward fact than fiction.

Though it takes a leap of faith, nothing depicted in Splice is theoretically impossible. The splicing method Clive and Elsa use is not real, but, according to geneticist George S. Charames, who worked with the production, it is a possible technique. “People don’t realize that the creation of human-animal chimeras is actually happening now around the world. If science were able to solve issues such as interspecies immunology and the ethical barriers associated with the procedures, we are not far away from Splice,” he posits.

Collectively, the DNA from all the cells in the body would easily stretch from the earth to the moon. Ninety percent of the human genome contains information accumulated through the evolutionary process but remains uncoded. These sequences are sometimes referred to by the misnomer ‘junk DNA.’ Without knowing what they can lead to, it is impossible to foresee or control the results of combining them. Considering the theoretical recipe that produced Dren, the hard-science explanation is that she’s a result of DNA borrowed from different species, including human, made into a primordial soup. The soft-science explanation, offers Natali, is that “she is greater than the sum of her parts.”

“In the film, there’s an allusion to Dren’s potential for developing predatory characteristics,” says Adrien Brody, citing a scene in which his character, Clive, considers the possibility. “But that wouldn’t make her evil. Human beings are complicated enough, but imagine all those unknown elements and instincts conflicting with one another in a chimera, and the chemical reactions it could set off within the brain. She’s just going through too much.”

“Everything related to Dren is like biological Gestalt and somehow, by mixing different components together, it accidentally triggers genetic developments that Elsa and Clive couldn’t anticipate,” Natali notes. Moreover, it triggers equally unexpected developments within themselves.

Says Guillermo del Toro, “What I find most scary and shocking in Splice is not the cloning or the genetic manipulation but the idea that even with all our scientifically advanced backgrounds and sophistication we are still human - we have a complex legacy of instincts and family dynamics and questionable morals. It’s not about the arrogance of man to harness the fire of the gods, but what mankind ultimately does with that fire.”

“Certainly there’s something horrific about what we’re capable of doing right now, but there’s also something fantastic and ultimately very hopeful about it,” adds Sarah Polley. “I’m a huge supporter of scientific progress. Splice explores the worst that can happen and I think it’s important for us to push ourselves to where our greatest fears lie.”

For Natali, responsibility figures prominently. “Science is a part of nature, so maybe it’s a part of our natural evolution to pursue these possibilities. Maybe we’re meant to do these things. Unlike Frankenstein, I never perceived this film as making a statement about dangerous ground. On some level it’s actually a celebration of life and the creation of life, and how so much of it is beyond our control but that we must participate in it as human beings and scientists. On the surface, the message is about what happens when you play with genetics, but at a deeper level, it’s about being responsible for the things you make.” OR

REVIEW: DVD Release: The Devil's Backbone

Film: The Devil's Backbone
Release date: 25th March 2002
Certificate: 15
Running time: 103 mins
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Marisa Paredes, Eduardo Noriega, Federico Luppi, Fernando Tielve, Íñigo Garcés
Genre: Fantasy/Horror/Mystery/Thriller
Studio: Optimum
Format: DVD
Country: Spain/Mexico

It may not have gathered as much critical acclaim as Pan’s Labyrinth, nor achieved the commercial success of Hellboy or Blade 2, but it was The Devil’s Backbone (2001) that Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro described as his most personal film.

With the Fascist forces in the ascendancy during the final days of the Spanish Civil War, young Carlos becomes the latest addition to the number of war orphans under the care of the kindly Dr. Casares and his devoted headmistress Carmen. In addition to the dozens of young boys, the orphanage also houses a cache of gold intended for the Republican cause – a treasure that’s constantly on the mind of the devious caretaker Jacinto.

On his arrival, Carlos immediately clashes with the class bully, and it’s not long before he’s on the receiving end of Jacinto’s violent, quick-temper. But this soon becomes the least of his worries, as he begins to hear rumours of a mysterious presence haunting the orphanage, referred to by the other boys as “the one who sighs.”

After earning his peers’ respect with a harrowing late-night journey into the school’s kitchen, Carlos begins to learn some more unsettling news: one of the young boys (whose bed Carlos has inherited) recently vanished. While several of the boys believe that Santi simply ran away, a few of the older boys suspect murder – and nearly all the boys believe that Santi is still around, albeit in ghostly form.

When Carlos confirms the boys’ fears, and encounters the ghost of Santi who tells him that “many will die,” it is a prediction that comes less as a threat than as a warning…


Foreshadowing many of the themes of The Devil’s Backbone and its companion piece Pan’s Labyrinth is a wonderful 1973 Spanish film called The Spirit Of The Beehive. Directed by Victor Erice, it relates the story of 6-year-old Ana who begins to associate a Republican solider hiding from Franco’s troops in her parents’ sheepfold with the monster from Frankenstein, after a touring film company projects the film upon a wall in her hometown. It’s neither a horror film nor a supernatural thriller, but, in many ways, it can be seen as the antecedent to a particularly Spanish sub-genre, where the painful reality of the Civil War and the Fascist ascent to power is seen through the eyes of a young child. Within this tradition, Del Toro has made a particular brand of the supernatural his own – one in which the horror contained in real life is so all-encompassing that his ghosts and monsters begin to elicit more sympathy than terror in relation to it. It’s such a central aspect of Del Toro’s art that his films become more overwhelmingly sad than frightening. His ghosts are as much haunted as they haunt, wracked figures of loneliness and hurt, seemingly born out of a child’s imagination, and in this film, as in the Del Toro produced The Orphanage, taking the form of a child.

The ghost of Santi appears very early in the film, and it is made clear from the off that he is, in fact, a ghost. Del Toro does not go in for any ambiguity here, never suggesting his apparition as a figment of the imagination so often seen in more conventional ghost stories. In terms of frights, the early encounters with the ghost are the most powerful. Del Toro’s use of sound is possibly the most effective aspect – a soundtrack of mysterious rustlings, footsteps and disembodied screams - the spooky voice of Santi more like a death-rattle than a sigh. When we see him fully, he’s a no less disconcerting and creepy presence - black eyes in a pale Goya-mask of a face, his outline shimmering in ripples like the stream of blood which floats upwards from his head, forever trapped in the moment of his watery death. As the film progresses, though, and we learn more about Santi the boy, our fear dissipates slightly, as we begin to sympathise with him as a victim of the same tragedies as the other orphans. For this reason, he never truly seems a threat to the boys, and when he warns of some future catastrophe destined to occur, sure enough, it comes not from Santi, nor from any other supernatural force, but from all-too-human actions inspired by greed and spite.

Just as in Pan’s Labyrinth, the true horror of the film emanates less from the realms of make-believe than from a world recognisably our own. The secluded orphanage is the most obvious symbol of a country torn apart by Civil War, home to the fatherless, and representing a Spain abandoned by the international community as the Fascist forces gain supremacy. The unexploded bomb that lies embedded in the courtyard highlights the fact that the orphanage’s seclusion does not make it any more of a haven from the surrounding troubles, however.

Appropriately, most of the characters are damaged in some way - all part of the same catastrophic events of the Civil War. Carmen is in a constant state of discomfort from her prosthetic leg. The doctor’s impotence not only prevents him from acting on his feelings for Carmen, but is symbolic of a wider inability to act – to put his humanist values into action against the brutal dictates of the Fascists. Even Jacinto, the villain of the piece, is not wholly without sympathy - an abandoned orphan himself, his fragile emotional state cannot have been helped by entering into a sexual relationship with Carmen not long after he turned 17; one he is only too aware as being purely sexual, and almost incestuous in light of the older woman’s role as mother figure to the boys. It is this complexity in terms of character that elevates the film far beyond standard ghost story fare. In fact, Del Toro has so much going on behind his ghost story, it’s a minor miracle the film makes sense at all.

That it does is testament to Del Toro’s exquisite craftsmanship. M. Night Shyamalan could learn much from the cohesion of The Devil’s Backbone’s screenplay, with its plot twists and multiple layers never feeling forced or used merely for effect. Backing up the cohesion is a cinematography which eschews generic gloom and claustrophobia in favour of a vibrant use of colour (with much of the film taking place in daylight, baking under the Spanish sun), and with buildings and everyday objects strangely oversized, as though seen through a child’s eyes. The predominance of red and yellow tones (in sandstone buildings, in the parched desert surrounding the orphanage, in blood) indicates this is a film very much about Spain, but it is amber that is the most thematically significant. Amber tones link Santi’s watery grave to the deformed embryos preserved in the doctor’s jars, as well as relating to the voiceover which opens the film defining a ghost as “a moment of pain…an insect trapped in amber.”

The film is so visually polished, so Hollywood slick, and seemingly custom-built for the appreciation of a mainstream audience, that at first you might not notice just how incredibly dark some of its themes are. That we see the fascistic Jacinto in one early scene naked and so eroticised even the freedom-fighter Carmen cannot resist him suggests Del Toro is implying there is something inherently sexy about fascism, something in its call to order and obedience that we are irresistibly drawn to. It is one of the film’s ironies that the children, presumably the most vulnerable to the violence and brutality of war, must finally resort to violence themselves, in a scene reminiscent of Lord Of The Flies, in order to both save their lives and reassert values of humanism and goodness against so much totalitarian barbarity. Such themes give The Devil’s Backbone the ability to disturb and move long after the initial thrills and shocks of more run-of-the-mill horror films have faded away.


While The Devil’s Backbone falls just short of being a masterpiece in quite the same way as Pan’s Labyrinth, it is still a small gem of a movie. Forgetting Del Toro’s own output, it’s hard to think of many horror films in recent memory possessing quite as much depth, sub-text and emotional impact. One of the best films to emerge from that fertile period of Spanish horror during the first decade of this century, and highly recommended. GJK

REVIEW: DVD Release: The Guillermo Del Toro Collection

Film: The Guillermo Del Toro Collection
Release date: 12th March 2007
Certificate: 18
Running time: 310 mins
Director: Guillermo Del Toro
Starring: Federico Luppi, Ron Perlman, Marisa Paredes, Eduardo Noriega, Ivana Baquero
Genre: Comedy/Drama/Fantasy/Horror/Mystery/Thriller/War
Studio: Optimum
Format: DVD
Country: Mexico/Spain/USA

Guillermo Del Toro is easily one of the most imaginative, original and instantly recognisable directors working today. From his humble beginnings as an independent filmmaker, the Mexican has produced numerous classic films, and in recent years made the move to mainstream Hollywood. Always present in his work is a rich and iconic visual sensibility, relatable and sympathetic monsters and freaks, and frequent references to fairytale, folklore and religion.


Cronos (1994)
When Jesús Gris (Federico Luppi), an elderly antiques dealer, comes into possession of an ancient device in the form of a clockwork beetle, he is unwittingly transformed into a vampire as the device activates and stings him. He becomes more youthful, and far stronger, but develops an overpowering urge to consume blood. He is hunted by a dying millionaire and his nephew (Claudio Brook and Ron Perlman, respectively) for knowledge of the device and its promise of eternal life…

Cronos foreshadows many aspects of Del Toro’s career: it features a clockwork device in the shape of a scarab beetle (both insects and clockwork mechanisms have become instantly recognisable Del Toro visual motifs) and the film also features soon-to become-regular collaborators Federico Luppi and Ron Pearlman (the former would appear in The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth, the latter in the Hellboy films and Blade II).

The film has some undeniably memorable scenes, including Gris’ first experience of a vampire’s need for blood (he laps it off a bathroom floor) and his resurrection in a morgue moments before cremation. The film does, however, tend to drag a little (especially the lengthy prologue and build up to Gris’ initial transformation) – despite only being 94 minutes, it can seem longer.

While it’s very stylistically striking, and has some iconic scenes, Del Toro’s debut is easily the weakest of his Spanish-language films. Several ideas don’t quite work and the story loses its energy on occassions. However, Cronos is a perfectly respectable first film all the same, and Del Toro was just finding his feet after all. Even here you can find evidence of his future brilliance.

Del Toro’s big screen debut sets the tone for the rest of his career – it’s dark, imaginative and fun. After his career began in TV and short film production, Cronos is certainly a daring and exciting big-screen debut.


The Devil’s Backbone (2001)
Far more than the standard ghost story, The Devil’s Backbone is a very tense and extremely emotional experience. It’s effectively atmospheric and creepy (it’s set in a rundown and isolated orphanage during the Spanish Civil War) and the cast all manage to get across the tragedy and horror of the events that unfold.

When young Carlos (Fernando Tielve) arrives at a remote orphanage in the final stages of the Spanish Civil War, it is immediately apparent that all is not well. There is an unexploded bomb stuck in the ground outside, sinister relationships between the orphanage’s staff and children, and the ghost of a young boy wandering the corridors. What dark secrets will Carlos stumble upon?

You have all the standard scares you’d expect in any horror film, but these are contrasted by tensely drawn out scenes - and the ghost itself, Santi (Junio Valverde), is brilliantly realised, managing to evoke the right mix of fear and sympathy from an audience.

The cast all bring a little something extra to their roles, and this helps them become believable characters, from Carlos’ inherent goodness and need to find the truth to the tragically lonely headmistress Carmen (Marisa Paredes), the kind and deeply philosophical Dr Casares (Federico Luppi), the emotionally unstable and threatening caretaker Jacinto (Eduardo Noriega) and the emotionally repressed bully Jaime (Íñigo Garcés).

“What is a ghost? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again? An instant of pain, perhaps. Something dead which still seems to be alive. An emotion suspended in time. Like a blurred photograph. Like an insect trapped in amber.” This opening question urges us to look past what scares us, and conquer our fears. It fits in with Del Toro’s usual ethos - that his monsters are mostly sympathetic creatures, and should not be taken at face value, as simply ‘evil’.

The Devil’s Backbone is well written, well acted and extremely scary. Del Toro makes use of just enough horror clichés whilst adding his own take on the genre. It further cements his position as an extremely original and rewarding director to take an interest in.


Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
Pan’s Labyrinth is a masterpiece of fairytale storytelling, effortlessly blending the real world with fantasy. Del Toro returned to his roots after a few years in Hollywood, crafting a believable fable full to the brim with emotion.

Set in fascist Spain in 1944, a young girl, Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), is sent with her pregnant mother to live in the care of her stepfather Vidal (Sergi López), a captain in General Franco’s military who is fighting guerrilla rebels.

Ofelia loves to read and has a vivid imagination, and she frequently escapes the clutches of her brutal stepfather to explore her new surroundings. One such escapade leads to the discovery an ancient labyrinth within which she meets a mysterious faun who promises her eternal life if she completes three tasks for him…

Pan’s Labyrinth is a film of contrasts – we are shown the horrific brutalities of war one moment and truly beautiful fantasies the next. One minute we see guerrilla rebels being brutally tortured by Vidal, the next Ofelia is being guided down ancient corridors by fairies. We see these worlds through the eyes of Ofelia, through the eyes of an imaginative 12-year-old –the distinctions between fantasy and reality are not yet clearly defined. The director can really go to town with his distinct visual flair in this film – everything is beautifully designed, from the labyrinth itself to the ancient faun, the fairies and the horrifying array of creatures Ofelia has to face.

The cast are of the highest calibre. Ivana Baquero makes Ofelia a believable heroine, full of wonder and imagination, and ultimately guided by her need to do the right thing. Sergi López makes Vidal a truly despicable villain and Maribel Verdú plays Mercedes, Vidal’s housekeeper and secretly a mole for the guerrilla rebels with a dignified defiance. We should, of course, not overlook Doug Jones, an often unsung hero of film. Because of his highly physical acting style and slight frame, he more often than not performs under heavy makeup and/or prosthetics. In Pan’s, Jones plays the Faun and the Pale Man (the grotesque, skinny creature who wears his eyes in his hands in the dinner table scene) – he is responsible for the portrayal of both of the most memorable creatures in the film!

Pan’s Labyrinth is not only visually stunning, but can rely on the strengths of every single cast member to make fantasy believable. The plot is emotionally intense, gripping and tragic, and Javier Nevarrete’s haunting yet beautiful score effortlessly carries and reinforces the story. Guillermo Del Toro continues to prove that not only is he a master of visuals, but of character as well.


Guillermo Del Toro’s films have steadily improved over the years. From a daring but unremarkable debut with Cronos to the chilling and far more entertaining The Devil’s Backbone, and then the pinnacle of his creativity, Pan’s Labyrinth. These films are proof that Guillermo Del Toro has demonstrated more imagination, originality and technical ability in two decades than many Hollywood directors demonstrate in their entire careers. SSP

REVIEW: DVD Release: Cronos

Film: Cronos
Release date: 6th February 2006
Certificate: 18
Running time: 88 mins
Director: Guillermo Del Toro
Starring: Federico Luppi, Ron Perlman, Claudio Brook, Margarita Isabel, Tamara Shanath
Genre: Comedy/Drama/Horror/Thriller
Studio: Optimum
Format: DVD
Country: Mexico

As the first feature of Guillermo Del Toro, Cronos has gained notoriety due to the Mexican writer and director’s more successful later films, including Pan’s Labyrinth and Hollywood blockbusters such as Hellboy.

In 1536, alchemist Humberto Oganelli creates the Cronos device, a small golden casing containing an intricate mechanism and an immortal parasite. The device, designed to bestow eternal life on its owner, is merely the stuff of legend until it is discovered by antiques dealer, Jesus Gris, in the base of a wooden statue. Gris accidentally triggers the mechanism within the device, which clamps to his hand and draws blood.

Agreeing with his young granddaughter Aurora to keep the Cronos device a secret, Jesus develops a desperate thirst, and later allows the device to feed on his blood. Jesus becomes noticeably rejuvenated but has develops a craving for blood.

The existence of the device is also known by the dying Dieter de la Guardia, who assigns his nephew, Angel, the task of locating the statue and its priceless cargo. Angel fails to recover the Cronos device, and later appears to kill Jesus in an attempt to beat him into submission. Jesus lies unconscious during his own funeral, narrowly avoids being cremated and escapes, although his body is rotting. He finds his way to his granddaughter’s rooftop den, where he avoids sunlight by sleeping in her toy box.

Jesus and Aurora search de la Guardia’s quarters for the manuscript explaining how to safely use the Cronos device. They are confronted by de la Guardia and Angel and become involved in a battle to escape…


From unquenchable thirst to slow realisation that he hungers for raw meat and then blood, Jesus’ descent into vampirism is gradual, affecting and, in context, forgivable. As the device rejuvenates the old antiques dealer, Federico Luppi (in a role originally written for Max Von Sydow) gives a portrayal of a man with a new lease of life that is heart-warming, yet tinged with sadness, as Jesus acknowledges the high price of this reinvigoration. The sexual nature of Jesus’ sessions with the Cronos device adds an uncomfortable element far removed from other vampire stories’ rape metaphors – Jesus’ lust for blood rarely involves other people, as he seeks to assuage his bloodlust in a non-violent manner. Scenes showing Jesus distressed over whether to lick spilt blood from the floor of a bathroom are upsetting and wonderfully staged.

Cronos has terrific production standards for a first time feature. Interiors are well-worn and grimy, Jesus’ shop is filled with authentic-looking antiques, and de la Guardia’s quarters above an industrial complex are sinister and sterile. Moreover, Del Toro draws horrific scenes from innocuous events and objects: in particular, the deadly Cronos device itself, with its intricate, syringe-like mechanism, produces some effective chills.

The film is notable for being dual-language – Ron Perlman switches between Spanish and English, and the opening narration is also in English. Del Toro’s disregard for filmic conventions in spoken language pervades other parts of the film, which is filled with pleasingly specific quirks, such as Aurora’s rooftop den, the grandfather’s miniature tea party with his granddaughter, and the grimy crematorium with its nonchalant worker.

Compared to many vampire films, Cronos is concise – thematically, as well as in terms of setting. There is a neat circularity to its features: for example, it is Angel who searches for the archangel, and the image of beetles recur throughout – first crawling out of the statue’s face, then mirrored in the appearance and piercing ‘attack’ of the Cronos device.

While Luppi appears in almost every scene, the supporting cast is equally dependable. Ron Perlman’s Angel De la Guardia is callous and self-centred, providing many of the comic moments in the film, as well as being the most repellent character. His grunting horseplay with Aurora at the beginning of the film is both humorous and deeply sinister, as is his bizarre preoccupation with cosmetic surgery. Jesus’ wife Mercedes is played by Margarita Isabel with sad-eyed humanity, providing naïve warmth to balance the coldness of the film’s villains.

Cronos include many themes that Del Toro would explore in his later films The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth, particularly the inclusion of a wise but innocent child. However, this film is notable (in Del Toro’s oeuvre - and horror cinema in general) for viewing events through the eyes of an elderly man, thus relegating the child to bystander.

Cronos doesn’t entirely break the mould of horror cinema, however. In particular, the exaggerated, slurping sounds of flowing blood are oddly conventional in a film that appears brave in many other respects, and Javier Álvarez’s score is effective but again adds little to the atmosphere.


It’s clear to see why Cronos secured Guillermo Del Toro’s reputation as an imaginative and resourceful director. It is easily one of the most effective horror chillers of the 1990s, and its casual disregard for cinematic conventions is welcome in a genre that too often veers close to pastiche. It’s visceral, affecting and unusual – and, in its small way, Cronos is a triumph of truly international cinema. TM

REVIEW: DVD Release: The Guillermo Del Toro Collection

Film: The Guillermo Del Toro Collection
Release date: 12th March 2007
Certificate: 18
Running time: 310 mins
Director: Guillermo Del Toro
Starring: Federico Luppi, Ron Perlman, Marisa Paredes, Eduardo Noriega, Ivana Baquero
Genre: Comedy/Drama/Fantasy/Horror/Mystery/Thriller/War
Studio: Optimum
Format: DVD
Country: Mexico/Spain/USA

Crafting some of horror’s most unusual works, Guillermo Del Toro is first and foremost a horror fan, not prepared to simply get the job done – and boy, does it show. His works over the years have included the underrated Mimic, Blade 2 and both Hellboy and its sequel. This collection, released for the first time on Blu-ray, showcases his talent for producing poignant chills with his first feature Cronos, The Devil’s Backbone and the much-celebrated Pan’s Labyrinth.


Cronos (1993)
Jesus Gris (Federico Luppi) is an elderly antiques dealer who happens upon an ancient mechanical device, shaped like a beetle, once belonging to a 16th century alchemist.

Housing an immortal parasite, which offers him the chance of eternal life, Gris readily agrees, at first not overly concerned about an extreme aversion to daylight and an agonising thirst for human blood – the pros far weighing out the cons as he grows ever more youthful with every sip.

That is until he yearns for the vital fluid of his innocent granddaughter…

With its plentiful supply of body horror and insects guaranteed to leave us insecure at the very least, Cronos is a neat vampire riff that’s imaginative, witty and right on the money.

If clamping the ancient device on Luppi’s chest doesn’t make you look away, or if beetles escaping from one of the holes in the statue fail to send a chill down your spine, the trashy image of Jesus licking blood from a white-tiled toilet floor will certainly affect you.

Federico Luppi and Ron Perlman are superb as the warring relations, with spot-on dialogue that requires little padding to move the story on at a satisfying pace. The special effects and locations still fascinate, and the gothic soundtrack compliments the former splendidly.

Dark, and in places extremely stylish, Del Toro’s first outing at the tender age of 29 is perhaps let down by a script that never really hits full throttle – yet its deliciously entertaining and frightfully scary nonetheless; certainly worth getting your teeth into.


The Devil’s Backbone (2001)
Set during the final days of the Civil War, the young inhabitants of a Spanish orphanage are brutally terrorised by Santi, a decaying spirit who stalks the building’s dark, decaying hallways.

Carlos, a 10-year-old boy, and son of a fallen Republican hero, is badgered incessantly by the child-like ghost upon his arrival. Having to contend with a violent caretaker, a bully, and an un-exploded bomb that dominates the orphanage’s courtyard, still ticking away, Santi latching onto him is all too much.

The only way to rid himself of the spirit is to delve into the past and learn the true story of the child’s death, in turn revealing the real source of danger and interpreting the ghost’s gloomy prediction that “many of you will die”…

More than just a simple ghost story, The Devil’s Backbone somehow manages to pull its diverse sub-plots together in such an explicable and beautifully realised way that come the final third, you’ll be deeply moved and will completely forget about how terrifying the journey actually was.

It may build slowly, but the tense murder-mystery elements that keep you guessing until the very end, tinged with unspeakable brutality and fantastic performances from its cast of mainly children, will barely leave you time to breathe.

It’s because of the excellent performances that we do find enough empathy, even for the tormenting ghost Santi, and also why Del Toro doesn’t need to try too hard to scare us. Children are more likely to open doors they shouldn’t, after all. That’s not to say the chills are lazy, even if the finer moments take place in the basement - and when Carlos is hiding in the closet.

Atmospheric visuals and subtle special effects are enhanced by an eerie soundtrack punctured by mysterious noises that really add to the tension, but it’s the emotional finale that will really send a lump down the throat – an underrated horror classic.


Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
A companion piece to the Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth follows Ofelia, a young girl uprooted to a remote military outpost commanded by her new stepfather, a sadistic general in Franco’s army during the harsh realities of the Civil War.

Powerless and lonely, Ofelia discovers a neglected labyrinth behind the family home. Meeting Pan, a fantastical creature who challenges her with three tasks, which he claims will reveal her true identity as a princess, she lives out her own dark fable, confronting monsters both otherworldly and human, hoping to finally meet her real father, the King…

Without doubt, a fairytale for grown-ups, Pan’s Labyrinth steals cheekily from all those before it – whether it be Sergi Lopez playing the big bad wolf in the shape of Ofelia’s stepfather, the housekeeper’s fairy godmother, the movie’s haunted forests and rural setting, or its nods to other classics such as The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe and The Wizard Of Oz.

Only, there are more than just devilish sprites, cheeky fauns and twisted witches on offer here. In fact, the real terror comes from the real world rather than that of Ofelia’s imagination – a place so violent and bleak it’s no wonder she so gratefully accepts the three challenges in order to prove her royal status.

The true monster is the sadistic general as he tries to stamp out the left-wing using whatever means necessary, revelling in scenes that are extremely difficult to watch as Del Toro charts the evil that men can do with look-away precision.

The scene stealer, however, is pure fantasy. One of the greatest ever horror scenes occurs when Ofelia is confronted by the Pale Man, a hideous monster with no eyes catching his beauty sleep until she awakens him by foolishly stealing some of his food. Timing is everything here. Even though the viewer knows it’s coming, they don't know when. Yet, even then, as the creature finally jerks into life, reaching for his eyes before inserting them into the palms of his hands, they still won’t be prepared for the nerve-shredding chase through the corridors that follows.

Del Toro refuses, once again, to go overboard with CGI, and the horror is more terrifying for it. Dark, delightful, bleak and beautiful, all at the same time, Pan’s Labyrinth manages to merge the horrors of real life into the fantastical world of imagination, leaving Ofelia, and the viewer, with no preferable place to hide.


Crafting some of horror’s most imaginative and terrifying works, Guillermo Del Toro manages to combine fantasy and supernatural dread with political commentary in a way nobody else can. A fantastic collection – one that truly delivers the goods. DW