It concerns the strange journeys of an imaginative young girl who may be the mythical princess of an underground kingdom. Her mother recently married a sadistic army captain and is soon to bear the cruel military man's child. The young girl is forced to entertain herself as her recently-formed family settles into their new home nestled deep in the Spanish countryside. As her bed-ridden mother lies immobilized in anticipation of her forthcoming child and her high-ranking stepfather remains determined to fulfill the orders of General Franco to crush a nearby guerrilla uprising, the young girl soon ventures into an elaborate stone labyrinth presided over by the mythical faun Pan. Convinced by Pan that she is the lost princess of legend and that in order to return to her underground home she must complete a trio of life-threatening tasks, she sets out to reclaim her kingdom.
Beautifully shot and acted this film is a huge improvement on del Torro's earlier works. Although the plot is classical the delivery is done with impressive imagination and flair. Well worth watching although some of the scenes are definitely not for the young, notably the scene where the Captain beats a soldier to death with a bottle and the whole sequence with the eyeless monster.
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