Rent Cria Cuervos (1976)

Grindingly Slow - Cria Cuervos review by ll

The synopsis is accurate although the allusion to repression in Spanish society seems far fetched. Its a slow slow family story. Sound was good with catchy spanish song.

Dark goings-on through the eyes of a child - Cria Cuervos review by Promessi

We are in the territory of adult events witnessed by a child. The scene is set for a confusion of real events, childishly imagined ones and misunderstandings. The film is always intelligent and humane. Perhaps the kids are not sufficiently animated -- I found it difficult to engage emotionally with some scenes when , on the face of it, events were serious even harrowing. Super performances by two supports : the servant with a taste for tittle-tattle and the severely stricken grandmother who wants only to die. All in all well worth seeing

Geiger Counter Childhood - Cria Cuervos review by griggs

Some films use childhood as a warm blanket. This one uses it as a Geiger counter — quietly ticking away while the adults insist everything's "fine".

Cría cuervos sits close to the The Spirit of the Beehive (Ana Torrent, still quietly devastating) and The Devil's Backbone: children as witnesses, the home as a haunted political space, and ghosts as the after-image of violence. Del Toro sets his story in 1939, at the end of the Civil War, with Franco's shadow about to stretch for decades. Cría comes later, in 1975 — the regime wobbling, but the habits it bred still ruling the room.

Ana feels like an actual kid, not a symbol with a bow on it: quiet, stubborn, always noticing the gap between what adults say and what they mean. The "poison" idea isn't treated as a twist; it lands like a child's way of naming fear so it can be understood.

And the house isn't haunted in the boo-hiss sense. It's haunted in the way families get haunted: by secrets, power games, and things everyone agrees not to mention. The film stays ambiguous without getting precious, and it hits hard — like pressing a finger on an old bruise and realising it never really went away.