How Guillermo del Toro’s Metamorphosing Monsters Create Necessary Drama Within Their Own Stories

Filmmaker Kristian Williams, who is also known as “kaptainkristian”, takes a look the iconic metamorphosing monsters featured in a number of films by legendary director Guillermo del Toro, why that particular change is important and what makes them so memorable. Williams also notes that del Toro is a visual storyteller who masters the art of constant reinvention.

…Why are Guillermo del Toro’s creatures so iconic? Well for one thing, the change. Almost all of the best movie monsters go through some sort of visual metamorphosis over the direction of their scene. The Xenomorph evolves through its lifecycle, the Predator reveals its mandibles and sunken eyes and the Thing is a shapeshifter so we get a wide variety of grotesque cores. del Toro says that ‘if monster stays the same throughout the film then there’s no sense of drama’…

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.