Final Exam Essay

Guillermo Del Toro bases all the monsters from his films from monsters that he has dreamed up. Growing up he always had dreams of monsters that have influenced him as a director and a a former make-up artist. In a recent NPR radio interview DelToro explains how monsters have always been a part of him. His fascination with monsters is shown clearly by the through detail exhibited in every monster in his films.

The use of monsters in Guillermo Del Toro lets him share his ideals of monsters being things that must be studied, and dissected in film. In Del Toro's film Blade II, he brings the dissection part of he monster fascination to live on film. The film's main antagonist are a new breed of vampire that prey on other vampires instead of humans. When one the new breed of vampires is captured, the normal vampires dissect it and try to get an understanding about how this new breed works.

Del Toro also speaks of the sociology of monsters in his films which in films like The Devil's Backbone (El Espinazo del Diablo), and Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Faunto). In The Devil's Backbone, the ghost of the little boy (Santi) is first thought to be a scary character. But when the main character Carlos finally is able to speak to the ghost, the audience finds out the he is only there to warn the children about the danger to come. The same happens in Pan's Labyrinth, the audience spends most of the film wondering whether or no the girl (Ofelia) its making a good decision to listen to the faun and do as he tells her because of the mean ways he tells her to accomplish the goals he wants her to. At the end of the film when he tells her that in order to have her do all the task he had to be very strict so that she would be able to come to the underworld to become princess along with her true family.

The way monster are portrayed in many films have almost become a cliché. But directors that have a general interest of how every aspect of their films are perceived, like Guillermo Del Toro, bring general film adaptations of monsters from their own personal lives. They then recreate the movie monsters into something the lives and breaths, without needing to use extremely gory images to keep the audiences attention.