Guillermo del Toro has brought his uniquely macabre filmmaking style to a critically acclaimed stop-motion animated adaptation of the Pinocchio legend set to stream on Netflix starting from December 9. When he was interviewed by Marc Maron for the WTF podcast, del Toro claimed that the two biggest influences on his storytelling were Pinocchio and Frankenstein.
Those stories might not seem too similar on the surface, but they do share the key theme that has unified del Toro’s movies: sympathetic monsters. From Blade to Hellboy to The Shape of Water’s “Amphibian Man,” del Toro is always striving to make his audience feel for the monster.
10 Pinocchio (Pinocchio)
Del Toro’s animated adaptation of Pinocchio isn’t the only Pinocchio movie that audiences have been treated to this year, but it is arguably the finest of the bunch. The stop-motion Pinocchio seen in this movie is a much more unsettling rendering of the living, breathing puppet than the one seen in the Disney versions of the story.
But Del Toro’s Pinocchio is lovable nonetheless. Del Toro stayed true to the most tragic and identifiable trait of the character: he just wants to be a real boy. Everybody wants to fit in, so Pinocchio is easy to relate to.
9 Abe Sapien (Hellboy)
The sweeter, more sensitive sidekick of the eponymous antihero in the Hellboy movies, Abe Sapien, is one of many prosthetics-heavy roles that Doug Jones has played for del Toro. The character’s voice is provided by an uncredited David Hyde Pierce.
Thanks to the familiar voice of Niles Crane, Abe is easy to identify with. He might look like a spooky B-movie monster, but Abe is perhaps the noblest of all the paranormal crimefighters in this franchise.
8 The Geek (Nightmare Alley)
The most recent live-action feature of the filmmaker’s career, a horror noir reimagining of Nightmare Alley, is arguably del Toro’s best movie. Once again, he explored the notion of a monster that the audience can root for (or at least feel bad for), but he did so through the lens of human characters.
At the beginning of the movie, drifter Stan Carlisle takes a job with a traveling circus after meeting the ringleader and seeing his brutal treatment of the chicken-head-devouring “geek.” Del Toro uses the opening geek show to ominously foreshadow the fate that awaits Stan later in the movie.
7 Lucille Sharpe (Crimson Peak)
The most sympathetic character in del Toro’s chilling gothic romance Crimson Peak is writer Edith Cushing, who encounters ghosts, survives the haunted house, and publishes her observations. Lucille Sharpe is the villain, freely admitting to murder, but it’s hard not to feel bad for her at the end of the movie.
She becomes the ghost of Allerdale Hall, trapped in the mansion, doomed to play her piano for eternity. The audience is hardly rooting for Lucille, but she meets a fate worse than death.
6 The Faun (Pan’s Labyrinth)
Del Toro’s Oscar-winning gem Pan’s Labyrinth is his finest mixture of fantastical genre storytelling and poignant social commentary. It’s both an Alice in Wonderland-style adventure about a young girl stumbling into a magical secret world and a harrowing portrait of Francoist Spain. The horrors of the fantasy realm reflect the horrors of war.
Doug Jones plays two characters, one lovable and one despicable: the latter, the Pale Man, is a disturbing monster who eats children, while the former, the Faun, is Ofelia’s Mr. Tumnus who guides her through the fantasyland and helps her on her quest.
5 Blade (Blade II)
In between the groundbreaking first Blade movie and the disappointing third one, del Toro offered a spot-on cinematic portrait of Marvel’s resident vampire hunter. Blade II is equal parts explosive comic book actioner and blood-soaked supernatural thriller.
With its nicely balanced portrayal of Blade as both a quick-witted quipster and a tortured, vengeful hero, Blade II is one of the most perfect superhero sequels in comic book movie history.
4 The Judas Breed (Mimic)
Despite being del Toro’s first studio movie on a big budget, Mimic still showcases the idiosyncratic take on horror that made his early films so special. The movie’s monster, the “Judas breed,” is a hybrid of mantis and termite created to kill disease-carrying cockroaches that are sweeping across New York City.
Mimic is a classic Frankenstein story. Like Frankenstein’s lonely, misunderstood monster, the Judas breed didn’t ask to get made. The true monsters in Mimic, and in Frankenstein, are the scientists who play God to create the monsters.
3 Stan Carlisle (Nightmare Alley)
Just like the geek from the beginning of the movie, Nightmare Alley’s Stan Carlisle is sympathetic purely because of the unthinkable situation he ends up in. Stan is one of del Toro’s most complex protagonists, using deceit and trickery to give people peace of mind they’ll pay top dollar for.
Flashbacks reveal that Stan murdered his father in cold blood, but no one deserves the life that Stan ends up living when he takes a job at another traveling circus in need of a “geek.” The ringleader uses all the tricks Stan is used to, and he accepts his fate with morbid serenity: “Mister, I was born for it.”
2 Hellboy (Hellboy)
The titular demonic superhero in the Hellboy franchise is easily the most iconic of the many roles that Ron Perlman has played for del Toro. It’s no wonder why del Toro gravitated toward this comic book property, because Hellboy exhibits the same tragic underpinning as most of his other characters: he’s a quintessential outsider who wants to belong.
Hellboy may have dedicated his life to protecting humanity from supernatural evils, but he’s not celebrated by the citizens he saves, because they don’t see a hero; they just see a demon.
1 The Amphibian Man (The Shape Of Water)
Of all the subversive monstrous roles that Doug Jones has played for del Toro, by far the most iconic and emotionally resonant is “The Amphibian Man,” the Amazonian fish-man in The Shape of Water. Del Toro conceived this character as a version of the Creature from the Black Lagoon that Kay Lawrence loved back.
Jones shares a powerful unspoken on-screen bond with Sally Hawkins as mute janitor Elisa. Elisa connects with the Amphibian Man because they’re both outcasts in desperate need of affection and understanding.
