When you see a single frame from a Guillermo del Toro movie, you know it’s one of his. Gorgeous production design, affectionately monstrous creatures, white-collar human villains, a deeply Gothic visual sensibility; his work has all kinds of hallmarks, while remaining fresh every time. And yet, as he finally makes his Frankenstein adaptation – something of a white whale project – it seems the director envisions himself at the end of a particular era.

“This movie closes the cycle,” he tells Empire in the Wicked: For Good issue . “If you look at the lineage, from Cronos to The Devil’s Backbone , to Pan’s Labyrinth to Crimson Peak to this, this is an evolution of a certain type of aesthetic, and a certain type of rhythm, and a certain type of empathy.

See Full Page