Four of the five Spanish ghost films discussed in this book make reference, to a greater or lesser extent, to the political-historical background of the film. This is particularly true of THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE AND THE OTHERS, both released in 2001. Each is set during a period of political turmoil – the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s; the end of the German occupation of Jersey in 1945 – and in each case aspects of this turmoil are reflected in the film. This integration of politics into the ghost story enriches the films, and is crucial to my analyses.

El espinazo del diablo/ The Devil's Backbone (Guillermo del Toro, Spain/Mexico, 2001)

In an interview with Kimberly Chun in Cineaste, del Toro outlines the long genesis of THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE. A Mexican writer-director, he originally placed the story against the background of the Mexican Revolution, but could not find financing. It was when Pedro and Augustin Almodóvar came on board with their production company El Deseo that the screenplay was rewritten – by del Toro, Antonio Trashorras and David Muñoz – for the Spanish Civil War. The film is now set towards the end of the war in an isolated boys’ orphanage in Catalonia. Del Toro found this worked much better: ‘I wanted to portray within the walls of the orphanage a microcosm of the world going on outside’ (Chun 2002: 29). He notes that the characters allegorise the political conflict, with the school principal Carmen (Marisa Paredes) and the Argentinian Dr Casares (Federico Luppi) representing the Republicans, the brutal young caretaker Jacinto (Eduardo Noriega) the fascists and the boys themselves Spain (29).

The allegorical emphasis in effect shifts the political conflict to the foreground of the film. The war as such does not reach the orphanage, but events there mirror it. Early in the film, the young hero Carlos (Fernando Tielve) is brought to the orphanage by two Republican fighters, Ayala and Dominguez. Aged about thirteen, Carlos does not know his father has been killed fighting for the Republicans – as has Carmen's husband. We gather that other boys also have (or had) fathers fighting for the cause. With its ‘reds and children of reds’ (Carmen's phrase), the orphanage is like an outpost of Republicanism in a Spain now dominated by Franco's Nationalists.