‘Sangre Del Toro’ Cracks A Wonderful Window Into the Mind Of An Icon

I wish I were as passionate about anything as Guillermo del Toro is about monsters. This stands to reason, I suppose, since del Toro is responsible for some of the finest monster movies ever, but I’m glad that director Yves Montmayeur’s Netflix documentary on the man’s career – nicely timed to capitalise on the recent release of his Frankenstein adaptation – resists this tendency to stroke the ego. Sangre Del Toro is full of earnest appreciation for its subject’s achievements, of course, but it’s much more interested in how the life and interests of the man himself have shaped his work over the years.

For this reason, the film eschews talking heads – del Toro is largely the only one aside from brief cameos from iconic horror creatives, although they’re on-hand to discuss their own work, not fawn over del Toro’s. The focus is appreciated, as is the reasonably tight structural focus of del Toro’s visit to En Casa Con Mis Monstruos in his hometown of Guadalajara, where, in 2019, he exhibited a variety of materials from his films and personal collection. There’s an intimacy to the whole affair that is rather nice, with the tone resembling a private tour more than any exhaustive biography.

Early in the film, speaking to the attendees of the museum experience, del Toro explains how the exhibits have been organised according to recurring themes and motifs instead of by era or each specific picture. Montmayeur structures this documentary in largely the same way, interspersing lingering shots of certain pieces with clips from their relevant movies and sit-down interviews with del Toro himself. He recounts growing up spending full days in the cinema gorging on Universal monster movies, finding ways into flicks like Night of the Living Dead that he had no business seeing at that age, and then often dreaming about the zombies and other creatures he had been drawn to on-screen.

It’s surprising that del Toro doesn’t come across much creepier. Early fascinations with horror and monsters, and lingering fears of death, illness, and decay, speak to a troubled mind, but del Toro’s self-awareness and understanding of the crucial appeal of these images are central to his work. His appreciation for storytelling and imagery is exceptionally keen; the way he speaks about a famous sequence from Luis Buñuel’s 1929 silent short film Un Chien Andalou, in which a razor blade slices open an eyeball in parallel with a moon panning across the horizon, displays an earnest fascination that underpins his own designs.

Similarly, del Toro’s fondness for collecting everything from artwork to gothic and religious imagery and comic books speaks to a fondness and enthusiasm for the work of other creators that is reflected in Sangre Del Toro, which features frequent asides exploring how other artists like David Cronenberg and manga legend Junji Ito informed his own work. The former’s understanding of the human body and the latter’s approach of polluting grounded reality with one creeping form of dread or another are easy to detect in del Toro’s movies, as are the influences of stringent Catholicism and vibrant Mexican culture that characterised his childhood.

There are clips from those movies, though most not for their own sake – they supplement del Toro’s own explanations of how his varied influences manifested into something like the Pale Man – one of the truly, truly great contemporary monster designs – and the Faun in Pan’s Labyrinth, or even a robot in Pacific Rim or a vampire in Blade II. I was particularly delighted – and a little bit disturbed – to learn that the Reapers in that movie were inspired by a man who had survived shooting himself in the face with a shotgun.

Some expecting a more exhaustive account of del Toro’s life, and not just his career, might feel shortchanged by the narrow, singular focus here, but it was my favourite thing about the film. There’s something contagious about del Toro’s passion for art that made me, and will presumably make others, even fonder and more appreciative of the complexities that underpin it. Del Toro doesn’t just create monsters – he creates manifestations of fear, warped beauty, love, and nostalgia, and he uses them to explore what it means to be human. Sangre Del Toro allows him to speak with wit, intelligence, and open adoration for all his many creatures, not just the ones he made for movies but the kaiju figurines he greets in passing as though they’re real. To him, they are, all part of a long line of influences and enthusiasms communicating with each other. He has merely provided a few links in a chain that ensnares us all.