Carlos, a young Spanish boy, is abandoned at an isolated orphanage, run by the kindly Doctor Casares and his feisty, one-legged muse Carmen. Rumour has it that the ghost of Santi haunts the building. That night, Carlos is visited by a shadowy figure and dared by his peers to enter the spooky kitchen area. Completing the challenge, Carlos is unexpectedly caught by the swarthy, bullish Jacinto who is surreptitiously hacking into the safe.
Dr Casares grows increasingly alarmed at the weakening state of the Spanish Nationals and implores Carmen to leave the orphanage with the boys. Carmen agrees, unaware that the impending danger is far closer to home.
While the film favours an historic setting, this is ostensibly a cracking ghost story. Del Toro exploits his experience of working with special effects to produce an exceedingly creepy phantom.
Together with cinematographer Guillermo Navarro (From Dusk Till Dawn), Del Toro has produced a film rich in visual style. Glaring sunlight contrasts with crumbling shadowy interiors, creating different moods and atmosphere to unnerving effect.
In the opening sequence Dr Casares opines, "What is a ghost? A terrible moment condemned to repeat itself over and over…a sentiment suspended in time." While an obvious reference to Santi's avenging spirit, it refers also to the lingering shadow of war. The spectre of Santi is clearly linked to the evidence and trauma of the country's bloodshed - effectively symbolised by the huge unexploded missile stuck in the centre of the playground and linked specifically to Santi as being the precise moment he's believed to have fled.
The film's sentiment is best summed up by the director, "The worst years of my life was my childhood, if you're a football playing happy kid, it's probably a great time but if you're a pale introspective creature of the shadows, like I was, it's hell."
Clare Norton-Smith
Del Toro's latest venture is Blade II starring Wesley Snipes
