History Film / PansLabyrinth

* VillanousBSOD: For what it's worth, Vidal looks like a part of him dies after [[spoiler:he shoots Ofelia, who was trapped in the labyrinth and holding her baby brother protectively. After all, she went into the labyrinth rather than to the rebels and she wasn't hurting his son, with her last words being a LittleNo to him. When he sees the rebels surrounding him with guns and Mercedes with a DeathGlare, he surrenders with minimal fuss]].

* DiedHappilyEverAfter: [[spoiler: As Ofelia dies from being shot, her blood drips down onto the Faun's portal. To the crying Mercedes it seems as though Ofelia has merely died a tragic death, but Ofelia percieves herself transported away from the CrapsackWorld she used to inhabit and into the throne room of her fairy tale kingdom. There her real father the king praises her for passing the Faun's secret test of character, and invites her to take her rightful place as princess at her parents' side]].
* DiedHappilyEverAfter: [[spoiler:Ofelia dies smiling as

* LuckyTranslation: When Ofelia says, "Yo sacrifico," the subtitles translate it to "I would". To an English viewer, it looks like the word "sacrifice"

* KickTheDog: The scene with two farmers who were just hunting rabbits and a bottle of wine -- Vidal smashes the son's face with it, and then shoots the desperate father and finishes off the son with a shot. This scene single-handedly establishes Captain Vidal as psychopathic sadist.

* SecretTestOfCharacter: In short, is it better to play it safe and obey, or to take the chance and be disobedient when you don't trust the authority in question? This theme is foreshadowed, in microcosmic form, in Ofelia's bedtime story for her unborn brother.

* AdultFear: For a film with supernatural terrors as scary as the Pale Man, it's an accomplishment that the most chilling moments in the film come from the very real evils of Fascism and the authoritarian, sociopathic figures that it attracts. [[spoiler:For mothers: [[DeathByChildbirth You die of childbirth]] leaving your little daughter with only your new husband, who turns out to be a sociopath [[WickedStepmother wicked stepfather]] who has no qualms with killing her if she someday gets in his way.]]

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Ofelia dies from her wounds on Earth but is reunited with her true parents of the Underworld.]]

* EvilCannotComprehendGood: The film's TagLine states: "Innocence has a power evil cannot comprehend." Which is presumably why, at the end of the movie, [[spoiler:Vidal can't see the Faun standing right in front of him]].

* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: Played with. The depiction of Franco's fascist regime, as well as the Holocaust imagery hinted at in the Pale Man's lair, certainly has echoes of this, as does the Faun's insistence that Ofelia not be tainted by human contact. As the film goes on, though, we see many examples of courage, integrity, and compassion from various human characters, even in the grim and hopeless circumstances they find themselves in.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: The brutal deaths of those two fairies (and lots of other terrible things) could have been avoided if Ofelia had not eaten those two grapes.

* PrincessProtagonist: The Faun tells Ofelia that she is really princess Moanna of the underworld, and that her father sent him to test and guide her so she can go back home. Ofelia goes to great lengths to prove herself worthy of being a princess, and in the epilogue [[spoiler:we're told that she ruled wisely and was loved by her people]].

* ThisIsReality: Carmen soberly tells Ofelia that unlike the latter's fairy tale books, the world is a cruel place and magic doesn't exist.

* FaunsAndSatyrs: Ofelia meets a Faun who promises to make her a princess again if she does as he tells her. He has the horns and legs of a goat, and his whole body is covered in bark and moss like the woods he comes from. Unlike the little dancing fauns of Disney/{{Fantasia}}, or the friendly Mr. Tumnus from ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'', this faun is meant to look ancient, wild, and somewhat ambiguous or threatening.

* KickTheDog: The scene with two farmers who were just hunting rabbits and a bottle of wine -- Vidal smashes the son's face with it, and then shoots the desperate father and finishes off the son with a shot. This scene single-handedly establishes Captain Vidal as psychopathic sadist. Cut it and he could easily pass as a right-winged UnscrupulousHero fighting terrorists/dirty commies.

* EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses: The Faun tells Ofelia that she is really princess Moanna of the underworld, and that her father sent him to test and guide her so she can go back home. Ofelia goes to great lengths to prove herself worthy of being a princess, and in the epilogue [[spoiler:we're told that she ruled wisely and was loved by her people]].

* FingerTwitchingRevival: The first sign that Ofrlia has caused the Pale Man to wake up is the fingers of one hand, and then the other hand starting to move.

* PreMortemOneLiner: "He won't even know your name." *BANG!* [[spoiler: Mercedes to Vidal, who wanted his son to know all about him, his father's clock, etc.]]

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Are the fantasy creatures real, or the product of a lonely girl's imagination? Up in the air, although the director insists that ''he'' believes the fairies are real. And if they're not, that actually creates a few plot holes (the chalk door Ofelia uses to escape her bedroom after she's locked in probably being the most difficult to explain away if you're so inclined).

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Are the fantasy creatures real, or the product of a lonely girl's imagination? Up in the air, although the director insists that ''he'' believes the fairies are real. And if they're not, that actually creates a few plot holes (the chalk door probably being the most difficult to explain away if you're so inclined).

* FoodChains: Eating food for fairies is never a good idea, especially if you are warned not to do it. Don't eat the food on the table means, ''don't eat the food on the table''. It can be explained, though, that Ofelia likely hadn't had a chance to eat fresh fruit for a long while because of the war. (She had been sent to bed without dinner but that was on an earlier evening.)

* HumanoidAbomination: The Pale Man has grown emaciated while trapped in the netherworld, and his humanity has withered away, leaving him a grotesque monster who only looks like a man in terms of general silhouette. Great rolls of loose skin sag from his bony frame, his face has no lips or eyes, and the eyeballs that sit before him on a plate are inserted into sockets in the palms of his hands. Since he cannot eat the food before him, his only sustainence is the flesh and blood of innocent children.

* ImpossiblyDeliciousFood: The feast at the Pale Man's den. In following the fairy tale motif, it was ''faerie'' food which is almost always glamoured to make it seem like irresistible. Ofelia likely hadn't eaten in at least a day so she was probably starving, making it seem all the more delicious.

** Ofelia claims her father was a deceased tailor. The Faun, however, tells her that he's actually king of the underworld and has been waiting for her to return. [[spoiler:Ofelia meets him when she goes to the throne room of her kingdom in the end]].

* TheMagicGoesAway: The Labyrinth is one of the last (if not ''the'' last) of the portals the King of the Underground Realm opened for his daughter to return home through. [[spoiler:When Ofelia messes up her second task, the Faun proclaims that the magical world will fade along with her eventual death]]. However, by the end of the film, [[spoiler:it is said that the Princess left traces of her existence in places where people could find them if they looked carefully]].

* LivingLabyrinth: The labarynth seems to have a mind of its own and to change shape, as when it [[spoiler:opens a shortcut to Ofelia while closing before Captain Vidal]].

* EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses: The Faun tells Ofelia that she is really princess Moanna of the underworld, and that her father sent him to test and guide her so she can go back home. Ofelia goes to great lengths to prove herself worthy of being a princes, and in the epilogue [[spoiler:we're told that she ruled wisely and was loved by her people]].

* FoodChains: Eating food for fairies is never a good idea, especially if you are warned not to do it. Don't eat the food on the table means, ''don't eat the food on the table''. It can be explained, though, that Ofelia likely hadn't had a chance to eat fresh fruit for a long while because of the war. Also, she had been sent to bed without supper, so was more hungry than usual.

* LivingLabyrinth: The labarynth seems to have a mind of its own and to change shape, as when it [[spoiler:opens a shortcut to Ofelia while closing before Captain Vidal]].

* {{Novelization}}: Del Toro wrote one with Cornelia Funks in 2019, titled ''Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun''.