Celebrating Love His Own Way

Credit: Guillermo del Toro 'Crafting Pinocchio'

Guillermo del Toro describes himself as “a horror guy who makes fairy tales.” Guillermo loves Gothic horror which is not the same as slasher or torture horror.

Even though Gothic horror includes ghosts and vampires, it is a very romantic and sensual genre. Guillermo goes on to say that in Gothic horror the main character is a dark angel the love interest falls in love with. Their love bond can never be broken. The Picture of Dorian Gray, Jekyll and Hyde, and Phantom of the Opera are all early examples of Gothic horror.   

Guillermo was born in 1964 in Mexico. He grew up in Mexico with his mother, a paranoid father, and his extremely religious grandmother. Guillermo and his mother were very close; she was weird like he was.

Guillermo says that his mother was a white witch When he discovered paranormal activity in his home, he had his mother remove the unrestful energies.  

 Guillermo loved creatures from a young age. He liked watching scary TV shows with his brother. Guillermo had dreams about the creatures, and swears he saw them in his room at night. He was too frightened to go to the bathroom. If they allowed him to, he would be their friend forever. The friendship with them continues to this day.

Guillermo watched monster movies, read comic books about monsters, and drew them. The drawings worried his grandmother to the point where she had an exorcism performed on him.  

As Guillermo grew up, the creatures helped him overcome the guilt he felt from his grandmother’s religious indoctrination of original sin and the fear of hell if he did anything wrong. They provided him with refuge and solace.

A main theme of Guillermo’s films, stories, and scripts is seeing the beauty in the imperfect. He shows this through the characters as well as the aesthetics of his work.

Guillermo started his film career in the independent and art house film markets in Mexico. His debut live-action film was Cronos, a Spanish language vampire film which became popular with the American horror audience.

Moving to California, Guillermo’s success with Cronos led to critically acclaimed movies, The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth, which is an anti-fascism fairy tale.

Guillermo’s two main relationships are with his family and his creatures. When his wife and daughters told him there wasn’t enough room for all of them in the same house, he built another house on the property. He lives with his wife and daughter in one of them and spends time with his beloved creatures in the other.

In the second home there are entire rooms dedicated to different types of creatures. For instance, there is a vampire room, a werewolf room, and even a room where he watches his favorite, Antique Road Show, with Linda Blair, the main character from The Exorcist.

Another big film written and directed by Guillermo was Hellboy, a half-demon who fights evil. Hellboy is the hero and not to be feared.

In 2017 Guillermo wrote and directed The Shape of Water. The main theme of the movie is that man’s downfall occurs when he only sees things one way and cannot see other perspectives.

Guillermo has had a few paranormal experiences which he incorporates into his movies. When his dead uncle, who went by the same name, made good on his bet to speak to his nephew from the other side, Guillermo was forever convinced that ghosts are real. The main ghost in The Devil’s Backbone sighs as a nod to Guillermo’s experience with his uncle in the afterlife.

Staying in a haunted hotel in New Zealand, Guillermo heard a murder taking place in the middle of the night while watching TV, but no one was actually there.

Despite being an agnostic, saying that he does not know if there is a God, Guillermo believes that everything has a soul; he talks to his car and the creatures in his home regularly.

What makes me interested in Guillermo is knowing how he sees the world, and how he infuses his world view into his films. Guillermo’s biggest message for his audience and the world is to see the beauty and divine in the other.

Guillermo experienced a deep inner calling to make The Shape of Water so he could spread his message of seeing beauty and divine in the other. The film won best picture at the Oscar’s that year.

He also strongly believes in accepting others for who they are and not who you want them to be. Guillermo used his retelling of Pinocchio to share this message by having Geppetto accept Pinocchio for who he was, and not the son Geppetto wanted him to be.

The other message in Pinocchio is anti-fascism.  Guillermo had Pinocchio take place in Italy during the reign of Mussolini to show the oppression of authoritarianism.

 Guillermo vows to never include demons and creatures in his films as being scary or threatening to others. He will only portray them as heroes with good intentions. He does not want to promote fear and bolster the institutions that promote it, namely the harmful dogma of the Catholic Church, which he experienced firsthand.

   Guillermo celebrates love and acceptance. It is a message that benefits his fans and the world. It is the message of the New Age, the New Earth — of love and compassion.