Mimic
Writer and director Guillermo del Toro
"I've always wanted to do horror films," says Mexican writer and director Guillermo del Toro, whose latest film is the apocalyptic Mimic (1997). "I believe that some of the most disturbing and moving and poetic moments that I have ever seen on film are in horror films."
The films he mentions to illustrate his point — Eyes Without a Face (1960) and Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast (1946) as well as The Shining (1980) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) — show not just his familiarity with various facets of the genre, but the contrast that exists in his own work, including the lyrical and quirky vampire film, Cronos (1992).
Disturbing, frightening, even gruesome, Guillermo del Toro's films also manage to be tender and beautiful. "The Victorians call it graveyard poetry," del Toro explains during a recent visit to Detroit. One way he achieves this is by contrasting the strong and loving bond between a devoted grandparent and an impaired grandchild with horrific circumstances.
In the case of Cronos, the mute granddaughter protects and aids her grandfather after he becomes a vampire. In Mimic, the grandfather goes in search of his autistic grandson after he disappears into a labyrinthine underground world of subway tunnels and sewers populated by fearsome giant insects.
"These are very tender, sweet relationships of dependence," he says. "In the middle of a pitch black tale, you have these points of light — of love — that, for me, are pure, moving and very fragile."
The 33-year-old del Toro, who first picked up a movie camera as a child, has always been drawn to the macabre, in part because of the strict Catholic education he received while growing up in Guadalajara, Mexico.
"Look at communion, which has this gross element of drinking blood and eating flesh," he says, "it's really screwy and creepy in many ways for a child. It's very delicate how you expose a child to a religion as strong as the Catholic religion is, because it can lead to miscomprehension and concepts as horrifying as hell filtering into the mind of a kid and making him afraid."
"They sure made me afraid," he concludes, "and that's why horror and Catholicism are combined in my brain."
Guillermo del Toro found a kindred spirit in another Catholic filmmaker who specialized in suspense: Alfred Hitchcock. Del Toro wrote a critical study of Hitchcock which was published in Mexico by the University of Guadalajara Press.
"I learned to love my strangeness," he says, "that's what I learned from Hitchcock. Both of us have sort of outsider points of view — I don't think that he was ever fully integrated into society — we're always a little bit of the anarchist, fat, funny guy."
Like Hitchcock, del Toro also appreciates the way that horror films can subvert the status quo.
"We go about our lives by expecting them to be as comfortable as possible," he says, "and what horror films portray is the uncomfortable side of life, things you don't want to face: pain, suffering. But I believe there is a very redemptive power — this might be too Catholic — but a very redemptive power in pain. A really redemptive power in suffering and horror."
In both Cronos and Mimic, complacent characters are forced to travel to hell and back and fight for the relationships they once took for granted.
"I think you only value love, you only value life and family and all that if you go through hell now and then," del Toro explains. "Just now and then."
"To purge the illusion that you live in a comfortable world," he adds, "there has to be an element — a disturbing little imp called horror films — that has to work for your discomfort."
Guillermo del Toro describes his first American film, the $28 million Mimic, as "first and foremost a ride," but one which also contains a potent commentary on the arrogance of scientific "Frankenstein-like" manipulations of nature.
In Mimic, genetic engineering results in a fantastical insect hybrid, and del Toro — who was very involved in the creature's design — insisted that it follow nature's guidelines.
"I would say let's make the creatures horrifying in a way nature is horrifying," he explains. "There's no better designer than nature. Nature builds the Ferraris of animals. We [humans] are just Volkswagens."
Del Toro — once a make-up and special effects artist whose company, Necropia, specializes in the art of gore — was not interested in making standard infallible movie monsters.
"I wanted monsters that have the full range of biological functions," he says, explaining why the creatures in Mimic not only defecate and rot, but display oozing and smelly innards.
"In one scene I actually wanted them to be screwing," adds Guillermo del Toro, chuckling as he recalls his virile mutants, "but we didn't have the budget to do it."
© 1997, Serena Donadoni. All rights reserved.