What inspires a master of the macabre and the fantastical? In Guillermo del Toro<\/a>\u2019s case, it was a combination of a fascination with monstrosity and many all-too-real experiences with the monstrous nature of humanity, some of which happened within his own family.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Del Toro\u2019s name is well known to those who love the blurred realms of fantasy and horror<\/a>, where fairy tale concepts are cast with horrific characters and monsters get happy endings. His best-known films include the 2006 dark fantasy epic Pan’s Labyrinth<\/em> and his Academy Award-winning 2017 romance The Shape of Water<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Over his roughly 30-year career in the entertainment<\/a> industry, del Toro has frequently discussed how personal his projects are to him, representing themes of loneliness, fear, and being an outcast that he experienced in his own life. This was particularly true in his childhood, where he was tormented by both real and fictional horrors. His way of coping with them was through embracing the monstrous, a perspective that clashed with his grandmother\u2019s strict religiosity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n At its most innocent, del Toro frequently felt like an outsider in his own society and his own family. But as his fascination with the macabre grew, he found himself being considered more than just unusual, but deviant and even dangerous. That was what led his grandmother to actually attempt to exorcise him, a concept usually considered too extreme for people.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Del Toro was born and raised in Guadalajara, Mexico, where the contradictions of strict adherence to Catholic ideology and casual violence and cruelty surrounded him. When he was five, his father won the lottery, drastically changing his lifestyle. He no longer had to worry about having his physical needs met, but he instead found himself in a world with little security and less emotional support.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Shortly after his father won the lottery, del Toro\u2019s parents began traveling a lot, leaving him to be raised by his grandmother, who he has frequently compared to Piper Laurie\u2019s character in Carrie<\/em>. She was devout, firmly believing in a form of Catholicism del Toro has described<\/a> as \u201cvery, very brutal and very, very gory.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Speaking with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah on their podcast Visitations<\/em><\/a> in 2019, the filmmaker admitted: \u201cI didn’t feel safe most anywhere.\u201d His grandmother would talk to him about hell and purgatory, warning him, \u201cYou\u2019re gonna be in a fire. Your flesh is going to burn to a crisp, and then you\u2019re gonna heal in the fire and then burn again.\u201d Meanwhile, his father was paranoid about people breaking in to rob them, which proved prescient when a night watchman shot a man trespassing on their property when del Toro was around 10.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s no wonder that del Toro turned to horror when two of his key parental figures instilled such fear and paranoia into him. He would watch horror movies on television after church, and an uncle frequently indulged his interests by taking him to watch horror films in theaters. These gave him a new perspective on the cruel world he was living in, one where a cousin had been kidnapped and murdered when he was young and where he witnessed death in his day-to-day life.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But while he felt kinship with some monsters, he was tormented by others. Despite making a deal with his uncle that whichever of them died first would attempt to contact the other, he was terrified when he seemingly encountered<\/a> his uncle\u2019s presence after his death. Worse still, his most frightening ruminations followed him into his sleep.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n His nights were plagued by waking nightmares, where he would seemingly wake up in bed, only to see horrific visions in his room that he could not prevent. He told The Hollywood Reporter<\/em> <\/a>about one such occasion, where he witnessed \u201ca hand and the face of a goat and the leg of a goat\u201d emerging from his armoire, a figure which influenced his creatures in Pan\u2019s Labyrinth<\/em>. He also told the Visitations<\/em> podcast hosts about seeing \u201ca burning figure at the foot of my bed… and that figure extended its arms and said, \u2018I live.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Despite del Toro\u2019s kinship with monsters, those images would terrify him, causing him to wake up screaming at night. He turned to artistry to express his pain and fear, freeing himself from being fully tormented by them through drawing and producing short films. But while that path may be celebrated now, it was a source of concern for his grandmother.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n While some might have seen his art as a product of profound creativity and resourcefulness, del Toro\u2019s grandmother saw it as a sign of something deeply wrong. Though he believes that she enjoyed hearing about his creative endeavors, the blurred lines between reality and fiction, the sacred and the profane, prompted her to seek a religious solution to the perceived problem.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Del Toro recalled to The Sun<\/em><\/a> in 2018: \u201cShe exorcised me twice with holy water, literally. The more holy water she threw at me, the more ridiculous I thought it was.\u201d She may not have gone to the lengths depicted in The Exorcist<\/em><\/a>, but there aren\u2019t many horror aficionados who can claim that they\u2019ve experienced an exorcism, especially not in such good humor.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But while the exorcisms themselves are often discussed jokingly, her other attempts to cleanse his soul are far less amusing. One such incident involved putting bottle caps in his shoes, sharp side up, to cut his feet. She saw this as a kindness, because \u201cthis will amortize your time in purgatory,\u201d he recalled. While his mother quickly put a stop to this, del Toro told THR <\/em>that \u201cthere were many bottle caps, metaphorically,\u201d in their relationship, which did not cease.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n However, it\u2019s important to note that del Toro does not see this event as an intentionally malicious act. While he certainly acknowledges it as part of his troubling childhood, he emphasized on NPR<\/em><\/a> that \u201cmy grandmother was in great pain that I would draw monsters all day, I would talk about the Bible, asking questions that were maybe too poignant, but we loved each other.\u201d Just like the juxtaposition of wealth and poverty he experienced growing up, he sees the love behind his grandmother\u2019s cruelest actions.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Mental Floss as a\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>preferred news source<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Those who have seen multiple del Toro films will know that childhood is an intrinsic part of them. As he has said on multiple occasions<\/a>, his philosophy on life and art is that \u201cYou spend 40 years trying to solve your first seven … where you were cracked at your foundation.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It is with this in mind that it is no great surprise that he was interested in creating an installment of The Exorcist<\/em> franchise. In his proposed film<\/a>, Father Merrin would be tasked with investigating a murder in the Vatican, where the Devil would warn him, \u201cYou and I will face each other again. I will attempt to take three children in your lifetime.\u201d Alas, the studio wanted to remove the actual exorcism from the film, a change del Toro was unwilling to make.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Even as he jokes about his childhood, teasing Deadline<\/em><\/a>\u2019s Joe Utichi in 2017 that his childhood exorcisms \u201cdefinitely didn\u2019t take,\u201d it\u2019s clear that the event stayed with him. One of his last memories with his grandmother was trying to show her his work, only to have her cry, \u201cWhy couldn\u2019t you ever do nice things? Why were you always creating these horrible things?\u201d She couldn\u2019t see the beauty he saw in the monstrous, an insurmountable divide that the pair could never fully transcend.<\/p>\n <\/p>\nGuillermo del Toro\u2019s Family Didn\u2019t Understand His Interests<\/h2>\n
A Troubled Childhood<\/h2>\n
![\"Guillermo](\"https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/c_crop,x_0,y_22,w_824,h_463\/c_fill,w_16,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto\/images\/GettyImages\/mmsport\/mentalfloss\/01k9fe97yj2hkyts7cd7.jpg\" "\\"Guillermo")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>\n![\"Guillermo](\"https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/c_crop,x_0,y_0,w_0,h_0\/c_fill,w_16,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto\/images\/GettyImages\/mmsport\/mentalfloss\/01k9dq3zctgy4f05vk06.jpg\" "\\"Guillermo")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>\nThe Exorcisms of Guillermo Del Toro<\/h2>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>\nDel Toro\u2019s Childhood Continues to Haunt Him<\/h2>\n