Guillermo Del Toro's Sympathetic Monsters

gamerant.com:

Guillermo del Toro is one of the few genre filmmakers to be embraced by the Academy. Oscar voters usually dismiss the kind of pulpy, fantastical movies that del Toro makes, but his command of themes and visuals has made him an Academy favorite. Del Toro is a master of pushing poignant social commentary through horror stories. In The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth, he used a ghost story and a fairy tale, respectively, to convey powerful political allegories surrounding the Spanish Civil War.

Del Toro’s unique filmmaking style is defined by a few recurring hallmarks, like disturbing imagery, gothic visuals (especially in Crimson Peak), and fully realized worlds. He finds the beauty in typically creepy or grotesque subject matter. In a recent interview with Marc Maron on the WTF podcast, del Toro named the two stories with the biggest influence on his career: Pinocchio (which he’s currently adapting for Netflix) and Frankenstein.

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On the surface, Pinocchio and Frankenstein might seem like very different stories. One is a children’s book about a puppet who becomes a real boy and the other is a gothic horror novel about a mad scientist who reanimates body parts. But they’re linked by the universal theme that unifies all of del Toro’s movies: they’re about sympathetic monsters. Both Pinocchio and Frankenstein’s monster are strangers to human society – outsiders trying to fit in – and this trope can be seen all over del Toro’s filmography.

Sympathetic monsters can be seen all throughout del Toro’s career. The Shape of Water, one of del Toro’s biggest hits, is a love story about the love between a janitor at a secret government facility and the Amazonian