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In the recent renaissance of cinematic ghost stories which includes such estimable films as “The Sixth Sense,” “Stir of Echoes” and “The Others” as well as such dreadful misfires as the remakes of “The Haunting” and “Thirteen Ghosts,” the best of the lot may well be this splendidly mounted, wonderfully atmospheric jewel from Mexican writer-director Guillermo del Toro, whose earlier efforts were the brilliantly perverse vampire story “Chronos” (1993) and 1997’s underrated “Mimic”–certainly the best giant cockroach movie of all time. “The Devil’s Background” is a moody, exquisitely crafted tale of adolescent fears and triumphs, at once unsettling and uplifting. It’s a haunting film in every sense.

Like M. Night Shyamalan’s 1999 blockbuster, Del Toro’s picture centers on the experiences of a young boy, but in this case twelve-year old Carlos (Fernando Tielve) is a lad dropped off by republican partisans at an isolated school in the war-ravaged Spain of the 1930s. The place, run by stern headmistress Carmen (Marisa Paredes) and her partner, the elderly and disillusioned Cesares (Federico Luppi), is a haven for orphans from republican families, as well as a depository of gold bullion to fund the partisans’ efforts against Franco’s fascist forces (whose unseen presence is represented by an unexploded bomb looming in the school’s courtyard). Also on hand are a young, mean-tempered custodian named Jacinto (Eduardo Noriega), himself an erstwhile student, and his teacher-girlfriend Conchita (Irene Visedo).

Carlos’ early days at the school are hardly happy, since bully Jaime (Inigo Garces) initially torments him, but before too long the two become uneasy friends. More ominously, though, the newcomer begins to see brief glimpses of what seems to be the spirit of a young boy–experiences that he comes to connect with stories involving a student named Santi who went missing the very night the bomb fell. Matters grow more frightening as Jacinto’s malevolence increases, the fascist forces draw closer, and the boys come into greater peril; in the final act, the school must be defended against attackers, the students must escape the threat of death, and the power of ghosts is revealed (in one case, in a fashion that recalls a famous moment from “The Shining”). The denouement is eerie and, despite the violence it entails, almost classically satisfying.

Much of the credit for the success of “The Devil’s Bckbone” must go to its cast. Young Tielve paints a perfect portrait of mingled uncertainty and resolve as Carlos; his performance isn’t nearly as flashy as Haley Joel Osment’s was in “The Sixth Sense,” but it’s even more quietly effective. Parades and Luppi are equally good, and Garces walks a fine line between the ruthless and the tender, pulling off even difficult scenes depicting Jaime’s awkward infatuation with Conchita. But the greatest praise must be reserved for Del Toro. The excellence of the performances are testimony to the astuteness of his direction, of course; but he also had a major hand in the writing of a tale that, in its mixture of poignancy and suspense from the perspective of a child, is not only as evocative as the 1955 classic “The Night of the Hunter,” but equally successful in adding both a strain of mordant humor (a scene in which Cesares explains to Carlos the source of the liquor he sells to the locals is priceless) and some powerful political commentary too. The dexterity with which all the elements are juggled is striking. Even more importantly, Del Toro proves as adept in dramatizing the material as Laughton was in “Hunter.” He’s a master at conjuring up an atmosphere of dread, achieving his goals with the simplest of means: his touch is so sure that he can evoke the presence of the unknown merely through the use of shadow against a curtain, without any need for overblown special effects, and his sense of composition, often featuring breathtaking tracking shots, is unerring. Del Toro has a painter’s eye for what’s visually effective, but he also possesses the skill to bring his carefully-crafted images to life on the screen without losing the sense of momentum needed to make them dramatically effective as well as individually beautiful. His love of the bizarre, so floridly demonstrated in his earlier work, is on display here, too, though in a more restrained form: Carmen’s prosthetic leg, for instance, is a marvelous touch, particularly when it’s used to such fine effect in both a love scene with Jacinto and a search for treasure near the close.

There is, in fact, only one significant flaw in the film, and that has to do with the secondary characters of Jacinto and Conchita. It’s easy to see that the former is meant to represent the brutality and amorality of fascist ideology, and it’s courageous to assign such villainy to an extravagantly handsome actor like Noriega, but the figure remains rather unshaded and obvious, and the performer not quite physically imposing enough to make him entirely convincing; certainly he’s not as complete an embodiment of the terrors of childhood that Robert Mitchum brought vividly to life in Laughton’s film. Conchita, meanwhile, is a bland creation, and while Visedo brings a lovely, madonna-like radiance to her, she comes across as a trifle pallid.

The imperfections are nonetheless negligible in a picture which is a major contribution to a genre that has enjoyed a welcome resurgence of late. One can only hope that the fact that it’s subtitled, and that its setting and historical context will be unfamiliar to most American viewers, won’t keep it from finding the audience it so richly deserves. “The Devil’s Backbone” is a masterful mix of psychological horror, political reflection and coming-of-age reverie, a picture that engages the eye, the heart and the mind with equal success.