Love yourself and avoid this movie.

Rating: 1/10 (3 February 2007)

Having seen the movie, I wished I hadn't and I'm inspired to alert others that the critical acclaim and 8+ rating is skewed.
Almost every scene in this move portrays graphic scenes of violence. I'm hoping that others see this movie for what it is, an attempt to profit off of the average moviegoer by baiting them with big reviews and misleading trailers, then delivering a gore-fest that a demented 3rd grader could have written.
The worst thing about this movie is that while this level of violence is expected in most horror flicks, I honestly expected an edgier version of the Neverending Story when I bought tickets. It was marketed to those who seek something artistic and unique... a diamond in the rough. Unfortunately this movie is the rough, yet there is nothing precious to redeem it.
Somehow this show garnered rave reviews, big crowds and revenues. Yet, it only serves to present something as morbid as the holocaust films, or Faces of Death. It's unfortunate that there isn't a special rating for this type of depravity in movies. Other films that would fit into this category include Reservoir Dogs, Cell, Silence of the Lambs, Pulp Fiction, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Sure some of these movies are good to watch, if you're able to get into the right mood to stomach them. Because of this Laberinto de Fauno serves to overwhelm the viewer with horrific violence.
While the previews suggest the premise of the movie is of fantasy and the beauty of the human spirit, what is presented is a message that it's okay to showcase the worst aspects of man, that a wrong countered with a greater wrong makes things right. That even sweet innocent girls fall prey to temptation and hellish suffering, but so long as they're self-centered and committed to getting what they want they'll live happily ever after. May the rest of the cruel world be damned.
It bothers me that those who made this movie steal your time, your happiness and your hard earned money. If you do go see this film you're telling them you'd like them to stop investing in truly inspiring, artistic or entertaining films because there's a bigger return on investment for movies with shock-value.
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Things portrayed in the movie:
1. The graphic slaughtering of groups of men, each finished off with a execution shot to the head.
2. The little girl protagonist's mother, pregnant with the evil step-dad's baby, is bleeding profusely through her nightgown, howling in pain. The girl, at the direction of a demon, uses a magical root fed by milk and blood, that becomes a fetid magic dish she places beneath her mother's bed. She's told this is to help her mom stop the bleeding during the pregnancy. The step-dad finds the root, hits the girl and burns the now-living root in the fireplace. The root, writhing, burns to death and as a result the mother dies during pregnancy (foreshadowed by the step-dad when he tells the doctor to let the mother die if it means saving the baby).
3. A man is tortured graphically by the step dad, but lives until he's put out of his misery by the doctor who gets shot in the back by the step-dad.
4. The little girl's "fairy" is a skittering preying mantis.
5. The little girl is supposed to use magic to gate into another dimension where she encounters a creature as sinister as Hellraiser who kills 2 fairies by eating them alive, ripping their bodies apart.
6. Graphic scenes of violent attacks where an innocent man's face is bludgeoned with a wine bottle until it caves in and then his innocent father is shot and killed at point blank range.
7. Ultimately the step-dad who has been a sadistic torturer, killer, abusive husband and step-father is stabbed and has his cheek graphically cut open, and is then shot moments after mortally shooting the daughter.
Since the positives have already been enumerated in the trailers, ratings and reviews, feel free to read them to gain a better sense as to all this movie offers. I didn't just think this was a bad movie, I feel sickened and traumatized after watching it. I don't regret feeling so affected. We should be sensitive to murder and death, it's part of why we value the lives of others, and that of ourselves.