The Devil's Backbone (2001) review

During the last year of the Spanish Civil War, preteen Carlos (Fernando Tielve) is dropped off at a makeshift orphanage (his father was killed in the conflict) which is run by Dr. Casares (Federico Luppi), he gets into altercations with the other kids, comes into contact with a ghost and then has to contend with groundskeeper Jacinto (Eduardo Noriega), who's desperate to leave the place (and steal the gold they have).  Del Toro's Catholic upbringing looms over all of this - not to mention a belief in the spiritual dimension interacting with the human world (in this case for revenge) - and he's shown he works very well with children (the way they eventually band together is fun) ... but he's also not the kind of filmmaker to adequately explore the nuances of the War itself: like the boys, he's more interested in comics, slugs and an undetonated bomb.  In one memorable scene, Casares reveals he makes a "formidable potion" which involves malformed fetuses soaked in rum: I'm almost always down for a stiff drink, but there I'm going to have to pass.