Previously, from the Oeuvre
Seen:
Hellboy, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Pacific Rim, The Shape of Water
Not Seen:
Cronos, Mimic, The Devil's Backbone, Blade II, Pan's Labyrinth, Crimson Peak
What's the Deal
I'm not a big horror fan--I will likely never see Del Toro's earlier films--but I do enjoy creepy/quirky monster things. I saw both Hellboys in the theatre because I wanted to retain my comics geek cred. I suspect Pan's Labyrinth and Crimson Peak are much closer to the horror side of things, but I've been curious about both, so.
Unlike most watches, I'm not watching these in chronological order–the two spookies are going first, so I can get a better grasp on what's Del Toroian about Pacific Rim.
Pan's Labyrinth, 09 December 2021, streamed via Netflix
Legit terrified as I start this. I'm expecting…a scary version of The Neverending Story? Or am I mixing that up with The Labyrinth? Anyway, we start with a close-up on a dead girl. Cheery!
It's 1944 and there are fascists everywhere. I mean, we're supposed to know that, right? Would young people know that? Ofelia, whose mother is married to a captain in the military, is reading fairy tales in the car. Her mother is beset with morning sickness. They pause by the forest and Ofelia finds a not-at-all ominous stele.
The captain, we are meant to infer, is a controlling monster who always smiles like he's civilized. Next to the manor, Ofelia finds a not-at-all ominous gateway to a not-at-all ominous labyrinth. (The thing is STONE, people. Does nobody wonder why it's there?)
A woman who works at the manor, Mercedes, is very nice to Ofelia and is obviously working for the resistance in some way. Later that night, we see the captain straight up murder a couple of farmers because he believes them to be trouble. Like, murder as in beat a man's head in with a bottle. Ugh.
In the middle of the night, a giant mantis walking stick thing wakes Ofelia and she follows it outside and into the labyrinth because if there's one thing someone new to a place should do, it's to follow a chittering insect into a dark and ancient stairwell in the middle of nowhere.
And there is a faun. "I am the mountain and the forest and the earth." It walks jerkily, as if it has to pull its feet free from the dirt with every stride. The faun tells her that her real father had them leave portals open so she could find them. BECAUSE SHE IS A PRINCESS. Her task is to complete three tasks before the moon is full, and he gives her a book that will guide her way.
The next day, we are reminded repeatedly that fascists are bad, guys, mmkay? Ofelia walks into the woods with the Book of Crossroads and it guides her into a path within a tree.
I know this is all supposed to end with a, "Humans are the real monsters," lesson, but how many scenes do I need to watch of a sadist exerting power through government-sanctioned violence?
Ofelia crawls through a tunnel of mud and finds a giant toad. She puts magic stones in its mouth and it vomits itself inside-out. (WHAT.) There is a key inside the muck. Task one, done!
The captain disses Carmen when she tries to be sweet about how they met, so…he totally killed Ofelia's father, I guess.
Yadda yadda faun, yadda yadda fascists. Carmen's pregnancy is not going well. Ofelia takes the day off of questing, so the Faun shows up in her bedroom and gives her a mandrake root to…feed blood? WTF, faun? It's supposed to help her mother get better.
Ofelia uses a piece of chalk to draw a door leading to her second task. It is twenty-thousand times creepier than the last one. While she was repeatedly warned not to eat anything, she does it anyway because she loves grapes that much, I guess. It wakes a monster (credited as "Pale Man") and she makes a ceiling door to escape.
Ofelia feeds the mandrake. Carmen isn't doing very well. The captain tells the doctor, if it comes down to it, save the baby.
Pedro, the brother of poor Mercedes, gets captured and tortured. I mean, I assume. I fast-forwarded through that part. FASCISTS = BAD. I GET IT.
The faun returns to Ofelia's bedroom because he has no sense of boundaries. The fairy tattles about the two grapes Ofelia ate, and he summarily condemns her to a boring, mortal life. "You cannot return. The moon will be full in three days. Your spirit shall forever remain among the humans. You shall age like them, you shall die like them, and all memory of you shall fade in time. And we'll vanish along with it. You will never see us again."
I went to YouTube to look for this clip (didn't find it), and discovered it's Doug Jones who plays the faun and the pale man! Doug Jones who plays Saru on Star Trek: Discovery! Doug Jones is the best.
Ofelia's mother throws the mandrake into the fire and she, like, immediately dies. Damn it, Carmen! The baby is saved. There's a lot of stuff going on with the fascists, but guys, it is not possible for me to care less.
The faun tells Ofelia to grab the baby and go to the labyrinth. That…sounds like a bad idea, babe.
And yup, the faun wants Ofelia to spill some of the baby's blood. Blood of the innocent and all that, and Ofelia's like, the hell you say. The captain shows up, shoots her, and takes the baby. (It's okay, Pedro and Mercedes kill the captain and save the baby. "He won't even know your name.")
While Ofelia dies in the labyrinth, Mercedes hums a lullaby to her. At the same time, Ofelia also enters into a throne room. She completed the third task by shedding her own blood. She joins her mother and her real father, rulers of the underworld.
Yay?
Crimson Peak, 10 December 2021, streamed via Netflix
Wait, Hiddleston is in this? How have I not watched it already? Geez.
"Ghosts are real," Our Hero Edith tells us as the film opens. "This I know." Okay, I guess we're jumping right into this, then. She tells a bevy of ladies she'd rather be Mary Shelley than Jane Austen. She likes to write ghost stories (the ghosts are a metaphor, she offers) but can't find a publisher.
Who did this to Charlie Hunnam's hair? I want to have some WORDS.
Hiddleston's character, Sir Thomas Sharpe, crosses Edith's path when he goes to her father and some others for funding for a clay harvester thing. He has, Edith's father says, the softest hands he'd ever felt, which…well.
Edith declines to go to a fancy party until a ghost shares its displeasure with the decision and Thomas himself shows up to plead for her company. And then he snubs the snobby host family and asks Edith to waltz instead? Well-played, sir.
Possibly, ghosts, you should have been warning our Edith away from handsome European gentlemen, because "beware of crimson peak" is pretty ambiguous. Meanwhile, Alan makes a play by introducing Edith to ghost photography, which is a strong choice.
Lucille, Thomas's sister, does not approve of his courtship of Edith. There's some ill-intentioned shenanigans going on, as she tells Thomas they're "buying something" with the family ring.
Edith's father also dislikes the courtship, though that's probably because all Jim Beaver characters can sense when malevolent forces are about. Obvs he gets murdered the next day.
Thomas proposes before she finds out about her father's death. "I feel as if a link exists between your heart and mine. And should that link be broken either by distance or by time, then my heart would cease to beat and I would die." Well, damn.
They marry and head back to England and yeaaaaaaaah, the slowly-sinking wreck of a manor house is filled with ghosts. Lucille is very possessive about the house keys.
Lucille speaks only in riddles. "Secrets everywhere." She not-so-subtly asks Edith if she and Thomas have had sex yet; they have not!
If there are no grounds to maintain and she doesn't have any household responsibilities, how do they expect Edith to spend her time? She goes up to Thomas's creepy toy workshop and guys, he really likes her.
Since Edith doesn't get to do anything (especially her husband AMIRITE) she plays hide and seek with the house ghosts. Things she finds: Wax cylinder recordings, a mysterious locked trunk engraved with the name Enola. Thomas mentions the red clay seeping through the snow has earned the estate the name Crimson Peak. Ruh-oh.
Oh, Alan is continuing on the investigation Edith's father started. He's surprisingly well-versed in forensics, given he's an ophthalmologist.
Thomas and Edith go down to town and get snowed in. I kind of love that Thomas is so into reading Edith's stories. But forget about that, it's consummation time!
When they get back, Lucille is suuuuuper-pissed about their sleepaway. Also, Edith isn't feeling very well…
Edith receives a letter from Italy for "Enola Sharpe." She plays the wax cylinders she found and oh no! Thomas has been married three times before! Lucille is poisoning her! What the hell! When she confronts them, it turns out, holy crap, they're Lannisters!
Lucille is THRILLED. She tries to kill Edith, but Alan is here!
Thomas doesn't want to kill Alan. Edith doesn't want to leave Thomas. Thomas, it turns out, is in love with Edith.
"You lied to me!"
"I did."
"You poisoned me!"
"I did."
"You told me you loved me!"
"I do."
There are a few stabbings.
Ghost!Thomas helps Edith kill Lucille. So romantic.
Ghost!Lucille gets to hang out in the haunted manor, playing the piano…forever. And Edith finally gets a ghost story published!
Now for the challenge: What makes Pacific Rim uniquely Del Toro?
Pacific Rim, 10 December 2021, Blu-ray
The hype for this movie was INTENSE. Kaiju! Giant robots! WOOOOOO. I've watched this movie three times, I think, the first being in the theatre.
Hey, both Charlie Hunnam and Burn Gorham are in this, too! So that's one GDT hallmark, I guess. There's something nice about directors having a company of actors, the same way theatres do.
This series vexes me, given that a couple of major jaegers (the big ol' robots) have names that include an ethnic slur. So I guess problematic depictions of quirky stereotypes is also a GDT thing? (The fetishization of aesthetics from gothic and Victorian times is fun, but consider from whence they originated.) Also, MAN, there is some serious orientalism going on here.
Having the first full battle we see result in Raleigh's brother's death is pretty rough. The aftermath, however, gives us a sense of scale that none of the rock-em sock-em does.
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That anybody thought a big ol' wall would stop the kaiju from attacking is just…like, people saw monsters taking leisurely strolls through miles of skyscrapers, right? WALLS DON'T SOLVE ANYTHING, GUYS.
The detail in the monster design is, I suppose, also a bit of GDT, as well. They're huge of course, and nowhere as gross as ghosts and beasties, but there's a craggy tangibility to them that's reminiscent.
When we get into the K-Science lab, the design there seems a lot like the facilities in Hellboy. Kinda dank, kinda rusty, with squirmy bits all over the place.
With the appearance of Mako Mori, I think we have another iteration of GDT's tropes: a traditionally feminine woman that is going to stab the heck out of people if she must. Ofelia, Edith, Mako.
These kids are flirty as hell, btw.
In their first run out, Mako gets lost in a memory and almost blows up the base. Baby Mako needs all the hugs. But wowwwwww, Mako, way to make Pentecost's plan to keep you out of a jaeger extremely correct.
Oh, hey, it's Hellboy AKA Ron Perlman! And he brought the franchise aesthetic with him! And Hannibal Chau deduces in, like, a half-second that the kaiju are chasing Geiszler? That's a kick of extra-terrifying. Geiszler looked into the abyss for science and the abyss decided they would look right back and maybe shake hands.
The second act battle is terrifying: Two kaiju taking out three jaegers in about ten minutes, using acid and electro-magnetic pulses. Obvs, Our Heroes are able to kill both of them.
There's kaiju birth and guts and radiation sickness and drifting with kaiju and stirring speeches.
"I never thought about the future. 'Til now. I never did have very good timing." Look, guys, I'mma need you to get way more specific with your romantic pledges.
There's something both touching and hilariously fitting about a dying father and an asshole kid making The Ultimate Sacrifice. And the mourning father assumes command. Like, all these battles are fine, but aside from delightfully absurd surprises like THE SWORD BUTTON, there's nothing particularly remarkable about them. Punch, punch, kaboom, y'know?
And these two just need to make out already, geez.
The Bottom Line
Pacific Rim is a helluvan outlier--the nature of the genre runs big and as fast as possible, while GDT's style is best showcased when it has time to instill some dread. We have similar elements in each narrative, though:
- Feminine-presenting stab-maidens
- The creeping intrusion of Other
- Subversion of the familiar into the uncanny
- The sacrifice of someone beloved
- Somebody's gonna be clutching at some viscera eventually
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