Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro’s fascination for all things strange, horror, and supernatural has perfectly translated well into his movies, and through elements of suspense and gore, he captivates his audience’s attention until they are pushed to the edge of their seats.
The Oscar-winning director’s love for dark science fiction stems from childhood and his own bizarre experiences. Apart from seeing a UFO, he also claimed to have encountered a ghost twice. One of these apparitions was his deceased uncle.
Guillermo Del Toro Shares His First-Ever Encounter With A Ghost
In an exclusive online interview with The Criterion Collection, Crimson Peak director Guillermo del Toro shared his terrifying experience meeting a ghost. While the second one happened when he was at work, the first ghost he encountered was someone close to him:
“I heard two ghosts in my life, one was in New Zealand scouting The Hobbit, which was the second time I heard a ghost, and the first time was in the bedroom of my late uncle at my parents’ house. My uncle and I, he was named Guillermo, I was named after him, he was my mother’s half-brother, and he loved the occult and horror and all that, and he, as a child, was a huge influence in me.”
The filmmaker related how he and his dead uncle made a strange deal that involved life after death:
“One day, when we were talking, he was like 20 years my senior, I said to him when one of us dies, we should come back and let the other one know that there is a life after death, and of course, I was hedging my bets, I was like 10 years old, you know, he was going to croak first, but he said, ‘Yeah, let’s do that.’”
The Shape of Water director relayed how he heard a deep sigh that sent shivers up his spine. He was not afraid at all, instead, he tried to locate where the sound was coming from until he finally discovered it:
“He died, and then I got his room, and I was watching something on TV, a variety show, and I was doing my homework and laying on my belly on the bed, and all of a sudden, I heard this really deep sigh and really sad like a tremolo, and I thought ‘What the hell was that?’ I turned off the TV, and, I waited, and I heard again, and it was a really deep sigh.”
Del Toro pushed his pillow to see if it made the noise. He also checked the window and tried to close it again. As he moved through the room, he felt that the ghost’s breathing moved with him. He started to freak out but still tried to investigate. Now, he pushed the air out of the cushion, and it started making noise inside:
“At that moment, I recognized the voice. I went, ‘I know that voice, it’s my uncle’s voice, oh my god, this is my uncle’s room, oh my god, this is a ghost, and I freaked out and ran away.”
The 58-year-old filmmaker confessed he never slept in his uncle’s room since that night, and he never heard from him again.
Why Guillermo Del Toro Doesn’t Make A Lot Of Ghost Movies
Despite his encounters with ghosts, Guillermo del Toro seems not very much drawn to spirits as compared to the monsters in his movies. He explained in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter what ghosts mean to him:
“You know, I think for me, it’s not the creatures, it’s what they represent; because to me what’s great about the genre — I don’t do a genre, I do weird stuff. I don’t know what I do. I do my own sort of mix, a cocktail of things. And what is attractive to me is the form of the fantastic, with the engine of the fairy tale and the purpose of the fable. Those are the things I’m interested in.”
Del Toro’s vast body of works that range from fantasy to action, and mecha to supernatural, have been widely cherished and acclaimed by fans and critics alike. He draws inspiration from his own imagination, as well as experiences, such as the ghost of his uncle that inspired the movie The Devil’s Backbone.
Sources: The Criterion Collection, THR
