Original subtitles

Monsters...

- Are metaphors. - I don't think you appreciate

the gut reaction people have to these things.

They do represent a lot of our deeper

psychological fears.

Pennywise is a manifestation

of evil.

He's made of fantasies and the creators

- are children. - When people ask me,

"What are the ones that are your favorite movies?"

I always mention "Cujo."

It's a really intense

go-for-the-throat film.

I loved "Gremlins."

The Jekyll-and-Hyde component

of these little cute characters and that they turn into

these crazy monsters...

I mean, the Gremlins are us.

Clear.

My favorite of all time

is John Carpenter's "The Thing."

"American Werewolf in London," "The Howling"...

those movies were really

the age of make-up effects.

Werewolves will kick

- vampires' ass any day. - There is a lot

to fear in nature.

The natural world is turning on us

'cause we have mistreated it in some way.

♪♪

"Jaws," for me, was the one.

That was the one that terrified me.

That's a monster.

That's a true monster.

♪♪

♪♪

Monsters hold a special place

in the history of horror.

The killer predators in nature...

The nightmare creatures of the fantastic,

and the monsters inside us

waiting to escape.

They can be frightening,

or fun, or both.

Whatever their size or shape,

whether they're humanoid or utterly alien,

monsters are reflections of ourselves.

They do represent a lot

of our deeper psychological fears.

We sort of design them to represent everything

that we feel is ugly about ourselves.

Time to float.

The latest addition

to the monster hall of fame is Pennywise the clown,

the killer creature at the heart

of the 2017 blockbuster,

"It."

Based on the 1986 novel

by legendary horror writer Stephen King,

"It" tells the story of seven young outcasts

in Derry, Maine.

They battle an ancient evil that emerges

every 27 years to kill the town's children.

Some of the greatest horror films of all time

all sprang from the literary works

of Stephen King.

He has the most vivid imagination,

and he takes you to the strangest places,

but the anchor is always

the... the human emotion.

Uh, without that it's not King.

I s... saw something too.

I remember the summer the book came out,

everyone was reading it.

We all had our, like, copies of "It," this big,

no matter where we were.

Do you enjoy watching adaptations, or...

- or is it... has it evolved? - Sure, yeah.

No, I... I like to watch adaptations

and, uh, I'm always interested

to see what people do with the stuff.

It's perfect.

It was a mainstream movie that was rated "R."

It played like a family film. Everyone... again, it became

the movie you were dared to see.

It grossed $700 million worldwide.

And not only that, it was a good film.

Beep beep, Richie.

I wanted to be true to the spirit of...

of the story and the characters.

The first goal was to... to make it different

from... from Tim Curry interpretation...

- Beep beep, Richie. - I felt that

there was something about Pennywise that...

that wasn't covered there.

Bill!

I also wanted to bring a weird balance

of... of a monster and a child.

If you see the... the design of the monster,

he has, like, child-like features.

He's like roundy face and...

and, you know, the bucky teeth.

And one of the things that I consider important

is that one of his eyes would be, uh, strabismic,

- so it was pointing out. - I will take him.

Only him.

Andy shot the out of that movie.

When Georgie is running down the gutter

after the... the boat,

it looks...

- like a real rain storm. - No!

It doesn't look like a sunny day

where people ran a rain machine.

Um...

I should get going now.

Oh.

Uh, without your boat?

Opening is a masterpiece.

There is a reason why it's, like, the scene that,

you know, has created a thousand parodies...

'cause it's that good.

♪♪

Help!

Pennywise's creepy hand

starts to stretch across the... the street...

Billy!

That is nightmare fuel.

And what the director, Andy Muschietti,

was able to do so well is maintain that nightmare fuel

throughout the rest of the runtime.

What the hell? Put the map back.

Mm-mm.

The projection scene is one

of the most impactful ones

because it sets you up for something.

♪♪

♪♪

And then it really surprises you.

Billy!

It is really about the horrors of society.

The scariest things in that book

are not supernatural.

The scariest things in that book are...

racism.

Stay the out of my town!

- Misogyny... - She'll do you.

You just gotta ask nicely.

And child abuse.

Tell me you're still my little girl.

Yes, Daddy.

Beverly's sexual abuse

by her father is shown to be

very much connected, we know,

with the external threats embodied by It.

Hey, Bevvie.

Are you still my little girl?

But it also reminds us

the most unimaginable, horrific things

really do happen.

Tasty, tasty,

beautiful fear.

Fears are never just imaginary.

Hey!

Eddie!

This isn't real enough for you, Billy?

I'm not real enough for you?

Oh...

It was real enough for Georgie!

♪♪

The clowns hate me. I just tell people,

"Don't hate the messenger for the message."

Kids are scared to death of clowns,

and... and, you know, clowns are a natural disguise

for monsters because you never know

what's under that makeup.

♪♪

"It" gave us a monster drawn from our childhood fears...

But some creatures tap into different parts

- of our brains. - You gotta be...

- kidding. - Our dread that others

are not what they seem...

And our secret desire

to act upon our wildest impulses.

Why are monsters of the fantastic

so popular?

Perhaps it's because they can do anything they want.

Monsters don't have to follow the rules...

That's why kids love them.

Especially monsters who enjoy behaving badly.

Monsters like gremlins.

You're kidding.

I loved "Gremlins" growing up.

My parents took myself and my sister to see it.

I think we were all expecting

something along the lines of "E.T."

I just call him Gizmo.

He seems to like it.

It had that Amblin-Spielberg presentation,

but what nobody told you is that it turns into

a balls-to-the-wall horror movie.

You know, there's some things I forgot to tell you guys,

and they're really important.

Keep him away from water...

Don't ever feed him after midnight...

I loved... I love that... that movie.

The Jekyll-and-Hyde component

of these little cute characters

and that they turn into these crazy monsters.

I'll never forget the entire audience

just leaping and screaming and applauding with it.

♪♪

And it was just so bizarre and so different

than anything we had seen in the '80s up until then.

That perfect mix of laughter and screaming.

I've been criticized by certain studio executives

over the years for...

"Is this supposed to be a horror movie or a comedy?"

And, um, I find the two genres

very closely aligned.

I grew up on the James Whale films

and, uh, Whale's pictures were always mordantly comic.

and he was not afraid to mix tones.

They've asked for it, the country bumpkins.

This will give them a bit of a shock.

The Invisible Man... who is certifiably crazy...

does a lot of funny things.

Uh, but then in the middle of doing something funny

- he'll kill somebody. - I think I'll throttle you.

Let go of me!

Then all of a sudden your laugh catches

in your throat.

That's always fascinated me, that dichotomy.

Gremlins are us.

The gremlins are the absolute worst aspects

of humanity manifested

as these little reptilian, snarling,

mischievous monsters.

And that's what makes them so great.

Especially in the scene where they're fighting

with Phoebe Cates in the bar.

It's like every single gremlin

looks like someone you might see

in a seedy bar.

The studio didn't really understand the movie.

They didn't get it when they saw it,

they didn't get it when it came out...

they just were happy that it was making money.

Are moviegoers so desperate

for entertainment that this is the trash

passed for fun?

Whoa! Wait a minute!

It was ripped off all over the place.

"The Ghoulies" and "Critters"...

and yes, I did "Critters 2."

Look at the size of their leader.

There were so many little creature movies...

little puppet movies... because they were

relatively cheap to make... unless you did them well.

The first "Gremlins," I think, was $10 million,

but the second one was $60 million.

Is everybody here?

All right, then!

To me, "Gremlins" was really great gateway horror.

By gateway horror I'm referring to movies

that are scary enough

for the whole family.

I think it's good for kids to watch scary movies.

Omi!

It makes you learn how

to process fear

on a physical and mental level.

I think your kid will probably be more messed up

if you don't show them anything scary

'cause they won't be prepared for the real world,

which is actually terrifying.

If "Gremlins" is the lighter side

of killer creatures,

John Carpenter's "The Thing"

is the darkest of the dark.

The film's shape-shifters

embody our most paranoid suspicions,

that the people we know and trust

are actually inhuman monsters.

"The Thing" is about a remote outpost

in Antarctica, and they find an alien in the ice.

And what this alien winds up doing

is it will... it will replicate

anything it can see.

It needs to be alone and in close proximity

with the life-form to be absorbed.

Slowly, it's knocking off...

each cast member one by one.

By mid-film, you don't know who's who

and they have to figure out who's The Thing

so they can survive.

The blood from one of you things

won't obey when it's attacked.

It'll try and survive.

The horror of sort of truism

was things can be real good and scary

until you see the monster,

and, uh, Rob Bottin... the special effects guy...

said, "Well, what if we show them

the monster constantly?"

But the trick is that the monster is

a different monster every time.

I mean, that's just brilliantly leaning into

the problem.

I took my girlfriend to see "The Thing,"

and she sat in the theater

almost vomiting in her hands...

And was so angry at me.

"Why would you take me to this movie?"

It's so gory and it's so grotesque but, like, it's...

it's amazing! What are you talking about?

It's like the holy grail of horror movies.

It's a perfect movie.

It's also an unparalleled, uh...

of effects showcase.

You know, we see these... these creatures that have

no real form or structure but that come from

the deepest nightmares that we could possibly fathom.

"The Thing" and "Gremlins" are monsters drawn

from our wildest fantasies.

- Wait a minute. - You'll never run into

either one of them.

But some of the most terrifying movies ever made

show us what might happen if everyday animals

became killer creatures.

Humans take their dominance

over nature for granted.

But what if other species rose up against us?

Animals we consider friendly or harmless.

The fear of suddenly being at the bottom

of the food chain is the premise

of the first man versus nature horror film...

Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds."

My name is Alfred Hitchcock.

and I would like to tell you about my forthcoming lecture.

It is about the birds

and their age-long relationship with man.

Such a bizarre thought,

that birds would attack us.

To think of them all of a sudden

banding together.

That you would have to be wary every time

you step out your door or get out of your car

or whatever is a very frightening thought.

"The Birds," at its heart, is a story

of a woman who, uh, is intrigued by a man

and kind of wants to get at the man.

Are those lovebirds?

No, those are, uh, redbirds.

And the man is interested in the woman

but is a little wary of her

because she's not his perfect idea

of what a woman should be.

I think she was a woman who was sure of herself.

I... I don't think she was impressed with herself.

I just think she knew what she wanted

and, um, how to get it.

What I love about "The Birds"

is there's no answer.

You never know why it's happening,

and that makes it so incredibly frightening.

When you can explain horror,

it loses its mystery

and it ceases to become horrifying.

To take what most people consider

a pretty innocuous animal, like a...

not an animal to be feared...

♪♪

And to turn it into something that terrifying

that still really works...

♪♪

I mean, that scene when she turns around

and they're all sitting there is terrifying.

It would be terrifying

for us to experience that in life.

Hitchcock was one of the first...

if not the first... live-action filmmaker

to rely heavily on storyboards.

And that's one reason why...

his films are so effective, I think...

because he didn't rely on

happy accidents to make those scenes work.

He knew how they ought to be staged,

how they ought to be cut.

- Daddy! - I don't think that

there is much that Alfred Hitchcock missed

in making his movies.

I mean, they were made for his audience,

and he knew his audiences well.

That was just one of the most horrific things

I had ever seen at that point.

You couldn't walk the street for fear of being attacked.

That just always stuck with me.

It was relentless and unforgiving.

I was supposed to go up the stairs...

and of course by that time my character had seen

all of the destruction

that the birds had caused...

and I said to Alfred Hitchcock,

"Why would I go up there

"knowing what's going on?

Why would I do that?"

And he said,

"Because I tell you to."

At the beginning of the film, the Tippi Hedren character

is assertive, very sexual,

very sure of herself.

By the end of the film, uh, conservative forces

from without reduce her

to a sort of wordless, helpless woman

who, you know, basically has to be carried out of the house

and is now afraid of everything.

In... in other words, a much more acceptable vision

- of what a housewife should be. - No.

No!

I think Alfred Hitchcock

was born to scare people.

To make them uneasy... frighten them severely...

and also really make them think.

I think he relished that.

Did he take it too far in his private life?

Probably.

He had his own motion picture going on inside.

"The Birds" is a masterful suspense film

and a disturbing projection

of Alfred Hitchcock's conflicted feelings

about female sexuality.

In the film "Cujo"... adapted from Stephen King's

1981 novel...

another normally harmless animal

punishes a woman for her sins.

One of your adaptations that I think everyone

who's seen it loves it is "Cujo..."

- Yeah. - Lewis Teague's film.

That movie was terrifying.

I was petrified.

When people ask me, "What are the ones

that are your favorite movies?"

I always mention "Cujo."

This is about a woman who's dealing with a lot

regarding her husband and this man she's having

an affair with, and this sin

that she has committed... which is infidelity...

and now paying the ultimate price for that.

To me, horror is always situational.

It's something where you say to yourself...

"Okay, we're gonna put a woman

"and a boy in... in the car,

and then we're gonna see what happens."

When you've got, um,

not just the rabid dog, Cujo,

uh, but then you've got her son who...

who's having these seizures, and it becoming sweltering

in the car that she's trapped in,

and you just feel the anxiety

and the, uh, claustrophobia.

It's a really intense movie.

♪♪

Part of the... the greatness of that film

is the performance by Dee Wallace.

It was extraordinary.

You know, you really feel her pain, you really feel

how distraught she is, and you feel

those survival instincts that kick in

when the trouble starts.

Well, what actress wouldn't want the opportunity

to play a tour-de-force part like "Cujo"?

♪♪

I had no idea

how tough it would be.

♪♪

In a horror film,

there's a lot... if you're doing it right,

there's a lot of emotional work.

♪♪

Your body does not know

you are acting.

Your brain does not know you are acting.

It goes through

every chemical change

that you would go through in fight-or-flight.

♪♪

So you can imagine

doing a movie like "Cujo"...

six to eight weeks of fight-or-flight

every minute.

There were lots

and lots of dogs playing Cujo.

It's all a big game for them.

We had to tie their tails down with fish wire

because they were having a wonderful time

going after their toys.

All the dogs were taken much better care of

than I was.

I wanna be clear about that.

They treated me for exhaustion...

for three weeks after that movie finished.

It was relentless.

And it is, I think,

my best work and the film I'm most proud of.

Please, God, get me out of here.

♪♪

"Cujo" and "The Birds" took harmless animals

and turned them into monsters.

But the ultimate

animal-attack story features a creature

everyone fears,

thanks to one landmark horror film.

In 1975, a young director

named Steven Spielberg made a film

about a giant man-eating shark

prowling the New England coastline.

"Jaws" was the first summer blockbuster,

and it's the ultimate animal attack movie.

"Jaws" is pure cinema.

From that opening shot underwater

and that music, I can't think of an opening of a movie

that's more effective than that...

the opening credits of that movie.

You are probably the most "Jaws" - obsessed person I know.

That movie, for me...

I saw it the second day it was out.

My parents went opening night...

How old were you when you saw it?

- Uh, 13. - Oh.

Probably saw it 15 times that summer.

I remember it, too. I saw it when it came out.

My parents took me. I was ten

and my brother was seven.

I don't know what they were thinking.

And we... I don't even...

- Thank God. - I don't even think we knew

what it was, and from the kids that went in to that movie

and the kids that came out were not the same.

No.

I love "Jaws."

I was young when I saw it

and it totally freaked me out.

The little things, like the coming up

on somebody... just the feeling.

It's not an actual shark coming up,

but you feel like, "She's done."

Oh, God!

It's about this basic

human terror.

The understanding that we are...

a snack for sharks.

- It hurts! - Realizing you are food

is upsetting.

Oh, my God! Oh, God!

It blew me away. Just everything about it...

the fear of the unknown, the fact that you would be

in the water and something underneath the water

could be that massive,

that big, that dangerous.

Oh, please help!

There's an element where Spielberg was forced

into really creative ways

of showing suspense

because his major special effect didn't work.

And I'm sure he would agree

that if the mechanical shark had worked a bit better

you might have seen the shark more,

and maybe it would be a lesser film.

That scene on the beach is... is pure Hitchcock.

Get out of the office...

A garbage truck next to the office.

You look at the tricks

that Spielberg used in that scene...

he used every trick in the book

to just really make sure that you saw

every single thing that was happening,

but you could do nothing about it.

Pippin!

And then when the guy throws the stick for the dog

and then it's just like, "Pippin, Pippin."

You just see the stick... you're like, "Oh, no."

I saw "Jaws" at a really early age

and my take-away from that was,

"Oh, Jaws eats kids."

The way Spielberg shot the death of the kid

on his yellow raft... I was shell-shocked.

Did you see that?

Yes.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

And I was like, "Oh, Jaws is unrelenting.

"He doesn't care who he eats.

That's it, we're all doomed."

Alex?

At its core, it's really about

the connective tissue of these characters

from a community level,

to the family level,

then to these three men

who have taken upon themselves

to go on a boat and go into the ocean

and hunt this great white shark.

Slow ahead.

I can go slow ahead. Come on down and chum

some of this.

Not seeing the shark a lot

was a good thing... both: Yeah.

For the audience, 'cause I didn't want

to see it anymore 'cause it was too intense.

You're going to need a bigger boat.

Everybody talks about

how bad this fake shark was.

I cannot believe that,

because the shark looks incredible.

It doesn't look fake at all to me.

That's why "Jaws" has not

been remade to this day, is people don't really want

to see a CGI shark.

You don't need to see more shark.

♪♪

And you've seen other shark movies since

where they're CGI sharks and you're like, "Eh,

I'm good."

"I've already seen Jaws."

Humans fear the ferocity of nature.

It's built into us.

But deep down, we know the biggest threat we face

is the one lurking inside us,

the ferocious beast within.

♪♪

Monsters are metaphors.

Name the monster, name the metaphor.

Joe Dante recommended that as a game show once.

"Jekyll and Hyde" is essentially about

psychopharmacology.

"Frankenstein,"

it's don't with God.

Now werewolves, that's a whole different story.

I just think werewolves are just the coolest, man.

I'm not gonna lie, man, I used to kind of wish

as a kid that I had that.

Like, I just want be a... one of those werewolf people.

Like, that look like... go around just looking like

a werewolf all the time, man.

Werewolves were always evil.

The idea of the werewolf

not as the evil, aggressive perpetrator

of death and murder but as the victim of a curse...

that's Hollywood screenwriter...

that's Curt Siodmak's invention with "The Wolfman"

in the '40s.

You know, werewolves being killed by silver bullets...

you know where that came from?

He was listening to the Lone Ranger,

who had silver bullets, and he thought,

"That's it. We could melt crucifixes."

So many of Curt Siodmak's inventions

became ancient lore

of the werewolf.

Curt Siodmak fled Europe

because of the Nazi threat,

and in the "Wolfman" films you can see, uh,

things that he's very consciously put there.

It's no coincidence that a person

is marked for death by the appearance

of a star in their palm.

Obviously this was a technique

the... the Nazis used.

The "Wolfman" films of the '40s

were a great influence on two horror classics,

both released in 1981.

"The Howling"

and "An American Werewolf in London."

With "American Werewolf in London," my intention

was that it's much more of a horror film.

It happens to be very funny, and that was deliberate,

but I don't consider it a comedy.

This poor guy went abroad

and travelled with his friend and got bitten

by something unspeakable and monstrous.

Once he gets bit, uh,

the audience knows that he's doomed.

Tomorrow night's the full moon.

You're gonna change.

- You'll become... - I know.

I know. A monster.

"American Werewolf in London," "The Howling"...

those movies were... were really

the age of make-up effects.

When filmmakers realized,

"Wait a minute, we can do anything we want.

"We can show a guy turn into a werewolf.

We can transform people into zombies."

And you know, up until that point it was nothing

really on screen... it was all left

to your imagination.

"American Werewolf in London" had, uh,

Rick Baker's effects, and "The Howling"

had Rob Bottin... Rick Baker's protégé,

who was doing the effects, so there's some crossover

that they came out in the same year

and they had some of the same effects.

Help me!

Please!

Help me!

I wanted to show it in real time.

I wanted it to be extremely painful.

Rick Baker did that nose extension, uh...

oh, gosh, that was a beautiful piece of...

of practical work.

I remember watching that in the theater going,

"How did they do that?"

The actual head

would change from within.

It would have mechanics in it

that would expand or... or alter the shape.

To me it's like it's...

it's one of my favorite movies of all time.

It's kind of funny, it's sweet,

and then it's really scary.

And then it's kind of bleak.

I love you, David.

And then it has, like, a sort of a...

you know, a terribly sad ending,

like most "Wolfman" movies.

Joe Dante's "The Howling" is famous

for its terrifying werewolves

and a post-modern self-awareness

we would later see in films like "Scream."

...is bitten by a werewolf and lives

becomes a werewolf himself.

"The Howling" was the first movie

where the characters don't have

to go to the doctor and ask what a werewolf is

and the first movie where the characters, uh,

are not behind the audience.

It's 80...

Quist...

"The Howling" was a perfectly-timed movie

about the California

self-help movement period.

It's a great satire and mockery of that.

It's a cult where people

all get behind somebody who they think is going

to change their lives and...

and transform them and, uh...

They're actually all werewolves,

and he's trying to get them to, um,

adjust to modern life

and not have to, you know...

Kill the mailman and eat him.

It's a perfect cast.

Dee Wallace, uh,

who got "E.T." off of that movie...

What attracted me to "The Howling"

was I never looked at it

as a werewolf movie.

I looked at it as a movie

about...

good and evil within us...

and the battle

that goes on consistently

in which one's gonna win.

That notion, uh, that a person

that you think that you know are a...

could shape-shift and change on you...

obviously a metaphor for a person

that seems very charming

or very, uh, you know, sophisticated

and cultured, and then in the privacy

of their own hotel room

they can shift into a monster.

The werewolf metaphor reflects our fear

of the beast within,

the primal animal held in check

by society's rules.

Some horror films go even further,

showing us humans can be as monstrous

as the creatures they fight.

What makes a monster?

It's a question filmmakers have explored

since the early days of cinema.

King Kong was a savage beast

whose tender heart proved no match

for a blonde and biplanes.

He's alive!

Frankenstein's monster was a toddler

in a giant's body, rejected by his creator...

Looking for love and finding only violence

and death.

In recent times, Guillermo del Toro

has made a series of horror films

exploring the nature of monstrosity.

It's the theme of his Academy Award-winning picture,

"The Shape of Water."

The film pits a monster

who's ugly on the outside

against a man who's ugly on the inside.

This is what scares you, huh?

Gee, you should be used to it by now.

It asks,

"Which would you rather be?"

What's wonderful about del Toro's, uh,

gill man, for the lack of a better word,

is that he is so real

thanks to the amazing performance

by Doug Jones.

The pantomime skills...

it's so realistic, so other-worldly.

♪♪

When Guillermo first told me about "The Shape of Water,"

he was very, very specific to say, "Dougie, you're going

to be playing the romantic leading man of this movie."

I was like, "Oh."

"Ooh, in... in a fish suit? Is this possible?"

But again, I knew, "Okay, this is coming

"from Guillermo del Toro... this is gonna work.

He's gonna make this work."

♪♪

Guillermo kept telling me... didn't want to see human.

"Dougie, no human."

And what he might do to remind me

he would just give me like a... a little growl

to remind me, "Oh, yes, right.

Non-human, I gotta... okay, right."

For instance, there was a... a particular scene where

Richard Jenkins' character is talking to me.

Do you know what happened to you?

Do you? Because I don't.

I don't know what happened to me.

I don't know.

I look in the mirror and the only thing

that I recognize are these eyes.

I... I got caught up in his story...

his monologue was so beautiful and so beautifully delivered

that I... I kept wanting to go, "Hmm.

Yeah." And that would have been

the wrong body language for this character,

so I had to think... I had to think, uh,

"How would the family dog respond?"

Sometimes I think I was either born too early

or too late for my life.

Guillermo has a real appreciation

and passionate love of monsters.

"The Shape of Water" is... is basically

the romantic side

of "The Creature from the Black Lagoon."

There he is!

Hearing Guillermo del Toro talk about his first time

seeing "The Creature from the Black Lagoon"...

he was about six years old watching on TV in Mexico.

His first image of seeing Julie Adams swimming

on the top of the surface of the water

and the creature swimming under her

would be a horrifying image to most of us

but to him it was like,

"That's so beautiful."

And he really wanted those two to get together.

♪♪

And when the movie played out to be not that...

♪♪

He was like, "What?"

He was... he was outraged, as a six-year-old boy.

Making "The Shape of Water"

is like a 46-year journey into righting that wrong.

And all of Guillermo's best movies

feel like they come from the heart.

"Pan's Labyrinth"

is about a child,

but it's not a children's film at all.

♪♪

Another view of "Alice in Wonderland."

Little girl goes into the rabbit hole

and encounters a new race of people.

Hola?

There's a monster in "Pan's Labyrinth"

called "the pale man..."

who is this tall,

obscenely pale figure...

Who has eyeballs in his hands.

He's blind up here, but he can look at you

when he opens his hands, and his mouth

is full of fangs.

I don't normally get creeped out

watching my own work but...

the pale man made me go...

Right? Which is... so somebody

did something right if... if I can get that reaction

out of myself.

Both in "Pan's Labyrinth"

and "The Shape of Water," the antagonist

in both stories is a handsome leading man

that you would think would be the one

who's got it all together...

and, uh, they're actually heartless and mean

and narcissistic

and absorbed with themselves,

and will do anything to get ahead

at everyone else's expense around them.

That's a monster.

That's a true monster.

You know, Michael Shannon as the FBI agent

literally starts rotting in front of our eyes.

His fingers start falling off...

To have the guy in the rubber suit

be the sympathetic one while that monster is...

is after him, that's a great twist of...

of storytelling that del Toro has really tapped into.

I think horror films are very good

at giving a voice to the voiceless

and empowering the weak.

We all have some kind of monster or demon

that plagues us in some way,

but to realize, "With the right dagger

I can kill that demon, so I'm gonna."

Right?

That's what a horror film teaches me.

Monsters embody our deepest fears,

the fears we can't or won't face,

the primal fears we need to repress to stay sane.

Fears of weakness and vulnerability.

Fears of being shunned by society.

Fears of giving in to our worst impulses.

When the monster is defeated,

we win a small victory

over the terror of being human.

♪♪