Following his first two features, the stylish horror films "Crones" and "Mimic," Guillermo del Toro now turns to the classic ghost story in "The Devil's Backbone," where he mixes supernatural phenomenon with political allegory, creating a compact, tension-filled examination of desperation and dread. By linking a Gothic ghost tale to the brutality of the Spanish Civil War, del Toro gives psychological underpinnings to the foul deeds and heightening sense of fear. Del Toro has also given Sony Pictures Classics a film that -- like that other Spanish-made ghost story this year, "The Others" -- can entice a mainstream audience.

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