It’s always a special event when a Guillermo del Toro film releases in theatres. His filmmaking always guarantees a unique blend of the horrifying and the fairy tale like, so consider it a celebration as Crimson Peak releases this week. But if you aren’t up to speed with who del Toro is and what his best films are, we’ve ranked them in ascending order below. Yes, with del Toro, they just go from best to most awesome.
5. Pacific Rim
At a time when Michael Bay is thoroughly destroying our childhood memories with the horrendous Transformers movies, it took a special kind of filmmaker like Del Toro to restore nostalgic memories. This is a film about giant robots punching the crap out of giant monsters, but it’s done with such style and love for both elements, your inner child can’t help but pump fist a few times. Unlike Hollywood’s recent fare, the action in the film moved slow, and it’s one of the few action films of the past decade that had fun characters and the ability to form a geek club. It’s also got some of the most crowd pleasing sequences in recent times, like a Rocket Punch
and a ship doubling as a baseball bat
4. The Hellboy Movies
Batman and Superman became all too saturated in pop culture, and Marvel’s Hulk films weren’t exactly setting the box office registers ringing. The world needed a different superhero, who wasn’t either a dark brooding tragedy or a godlike entity. Hellboy, much like del Toro himself delivered genuine wit and off kilter comedy seldom seen in superhero cinema – and it had gorgeous big scale set pieces with surreal imagery never before seen in the genre. As a bonus it was also genuinely scary in parts. It’s a tragedy that audiences wanted dumber superhero movies and a third Hellboy movie was canned due to underwhelming return on investment. Those who enjoyed the self-aware black humour of Guardians of the Galaxy would be surprised to know that Del Toro’s Hellboy movies got there first.
3. Cronos
How does one reinvent the Vampire genre when there have already been dozens of films and TV shows based on the legend? Ask del Toro, who with his first feature film demonstrated that he has a unique voice on familiar stories. This was the first time a film relayed the tragedy of someone becoming a vampire, and the effects it could have on the people surrounding him. The mysterious golden scarab that causes vampirism in the film was the first sign of del Toro bringing gothic objects and imagery into cinema.
2. Pan’s Labyrinth
The film that really brought del Toro into international limelight, Pan’s Labyrinth set a new standard for cinema loaded with metaphors. It’s a gorgeous little fairy tale, with an undercurrent of a horrifying reality. It was beautiful but it wasn’t eye candy, it was eye protein. The monsters seen in the film are terrifying but also fascinating. The villainous Army captain in the film is far scarier than the otherworldly creatures of the story. And the music is to die for.
1. The Devil’s Backbone
Anyone who ranks Pan’s Labyrinth as del Toro’s best film hasn’t seen The Devil’s Backbone. Much like Labyrinth, it balances a spooky ghost story with political message and a gentle takedown of the situation during the Spanish civil war. It’s not often that we see a film where the horror elements are used as a backdrop for a larger, much more complex story. The is also one of the very rare films where the frights don’t pop out as jump scares but are slow, atmospheric, truly creepy buildups. And even in the ghoulish horror of the ghost’s face there is a strand of tragedy you can’t look away from. If you’re looking for the best film about Del Toro’s love for macabre design, fairy tale infused with horror, social message and politics and tremendous music, it is this film.
(Mihir Fadnavis is not only a film critic and journalist but also a certified film geek who has consumed more movies than meals.)
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