One of our favorite museum exhibitions in Los Angeles this Fall has to be LACMA's Guillermo del Toro: At Home With Monsters. The exhibit features the massive collection of film artifacts & inspiration of cinema virtuoso & monster/horror/fantasy enthusiast, Guillermo del Toro.
Our G Pen Elite joined us for the fun & excitement, augmenting perceptiveness as always.
Upon entry of the first room, we were greeted by a uncannily realistic wax statue of Fauno (from Pan's Labyrinth).
Rather than a chronological layout of the artist's career and filmography, the exhibit is separated into themes & motifs that have been influential to Guillermo since he was young.
Everything in the exhibit is from a house that exclusively harbors Guillermo's collection. In an interview with Time, he said "As a kid, I dreamed of having a house with secret passages and a room where it rained 24 hours a day. The point of being over 40 is to fulfill the desires you've been harboring since you were 7."
A picture of his real house everything came from.
Mary Shelly's Frankenstein is Guillermo's favorite book. Although we can only hope his aspirations to do a Frankenstein movie will come to life, this scene paying homage to the scientist, monster and monster's bride was one of our favorites.
Raaawwwwwwww!
A tribute to Ray Harryhausen, one of Del Toro's most admired film icons & stop-motion animators. Skeleton puppets from the film Jason and the Argonauts assist him with some milk and cookies.
A room of vintage comics & drawings dwell in the back of the exhibit.
On the other side of the room, a short black & white film Guillermo made himself for TV series The Strain is available for viewing. We won't ruin it for you but it involves wrestling & vampires...
A scene paying homage to Tod Browning's legendary Freaks reminds us not all horror movie villains are evil, in fact a lot of the time merely misunderstood.
Be sure to stop by LACMA by November 27th to explore the immense treasury. Due to the high turn out for the exhibit, we recommend booking tickets in advance.
