Ana
Ana is a young girl who attends a screening of the 1931 Universal Studios monster movie Frankenstein along with what seems to be everyone else who lives in the small Spanish village she calls home. She is enthralled by the film and especially intrigued by the section where the Creature comes upon a young girl by a lake and accidentally causes her to drown as well as the reaction by those townsfolk to the girl’s death who take off in a search for the Creature to enact vengeance. The experience ignites her imagination and transforms the life.
Isabel
Isabel is Ana’s slightly older sister. She is given to playing sometime cruel tricks on Ana and quickly becomes irritated by Ana’s constant questioning of why the Creature killed the girl and why the villagers killed the Creature. Mainly just to stop her from asking questions so she can get back to sleep, Isabel quickly concocts a tale about the Creature being a spirit who only appears at night, his monstrous appearance being a disguise to hide the fact that he is a spirit. Isabel also informs Ana how can summon the spirit at will.
Fernando
The father of both Ana and Isabel is Fernando. He is a beekeeper with several hives, but only one scene is actually committed to this aspect of his life. He teaches the two girls about how to choose mushrooms without eating the dangerous one which can make you sick or even kill you while advising them not to share some things he tells them with their mother.
Teresa
Teresa is mother to Ana and Isabel and wife to Fernando. She is about fifteen years his junior and whether it is the age difference or something else, it is obvious that their marriage is strained. She spends most of the movie writing letters to a mysterious man. It is not made clear exactly who this man is and theories range from his simply being a former lover she rejected to marry Fernando to being the fugitive who jumps from a train and is befriended by Ana before being killed by Franco’s police to being the younger Fernando with whom she fell in love but who no longer exists in the form of her old husband.
