8.4

El laberinto del fauno

2006, Spain, Mexico, USA

• Actors: Ivana Baquero, Sergi López, Maribel Verdú, Doug Jones, Ariadna Gil, Álex Angulo, Manolo Solo, César Vea, Roger Casamajor, Ivan Massagué, Gonzalo Uriarte, Eusebio Lázaro, Francisco Vidal, Juanjo Cucalón, Lina Mira, Mario Zorrilla, Sebastián Haro, Mila Espiga, Pepa Pedroche, María Jesús Gattoo, Ana Sáez, Chani Martín, Milo Taboada, Fernando Albizu, Pedro G. Marzo, José Luis Torrijo, Íñigo Garcés, Fernando Tielve, Federico Luppi, Chicho Campillo
• Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery, Thriller, War
• Director(s): Guillermo del Toro
• Available languages:
  • Spanish Spanish.

In 1944 fascist Spain, a girl, fascinated with fairy-tales, is sent along with her pregnant mother to live with her new stepfather, a ruthless captain of the Spanish army. During the night, she meets a fairy who takes her to an old faun in the center of the labyrinth. He tells her she's a princess, but must prove her royalty by surviving three gruesome tasks. If she fails, she will never prove herself to be the the true princess and will never see her real father, the king, again.

  7.6

El espinazo del diablo

2001, Spain, Mexico

• Actors: Marisa Paredes, Eduardo Noriega, Federico Luppi, Fernando Tielve, Íñigo Garcés, Irene Visedo, José Manuel Lorenzo, Francisco Maestre, Junio Valverde, Berta Ojea, Adrián Lamana, Daniel Esparza, Miguel Ortiz, Juan Carlos Vellido, Javier Bódalo, Víctor Elías, José Luis Torrijo, Álvaro Vega, Jonas Batlecas, Daniel Cuño, Rubén Escamilla, Andreas Muñoz, Adrián Serna, Javier González Sánchez, Álvaro Román, Mikel Selles, Leandro Tejada, Izan Checa, Víctor Barroso, Martín Hernández
• Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Thriller
• Director(s): Guillermo del Toro
• Available languages:
  • Spanish Spanish.

It is 1939, the end of three years of bloody civil war in Spain, and General Franco's right-wing Nationalists are poised to defeat the left-wing Republican forces. A ten-year-old boy named Carlos, the son of a fallen Republican war hero, is left by his tutor in an orphanage in the middle of nowhere. The orphanage is run by a curt but considerate headmistress named Carmen and a kindly Professor Casares, both of whom are sympathetic to the doomed Republican cause. Despite their concern for him, and his gradual triumph over the usual schoolhouse bully, Carlos never feels completely comfortable in his new environment. First of all, there was that initial encounter with the orphanage's nasty caretaker, Jacinto, who reacts even more violently when anyone is caught looking around a particular storage room the one with the deep well. Second, and more inexplicable, is the presence of a ghost, one of the former occupants of the orphanage named Santi. Not long after Carlos' arrival, Santi latches onto Carlos, badgering him incessantly at night and gloomily intoning, "Many of you will die." As if that wasn't enough to keep the orphanage's occupants in an unrelenting state of terror, there's the un-exploded bomb that dominates the orphanage's courtyard, still ticking away; With the orphanage left defenseless by its isolation, and the swift progression of Franco's troops, the ghost's prediction seems depressingly accurate. Nevertheless, with every step of the plot, it becomes apparent that the ghost's predictions as to who (or what) will die, the real source of danger and even the definition of death itself may be more ambiguous than first thought.