Few filmmakers are as ambitious or as creative as Guillermo del Toro, who regularly combines unexpected genres in a unique film that is nothing like anything else released that year. Del Toro appears to be continuing this trend with The Shape of Water, blending themes of romance and monster movies into one gorgeous film. The Playlist has shared an all-new clip from the film, which you can watch below.
In the film, the lonely Elisa (Sally Hawkins) works in a hidden high-security government laboratory, trapped in a life of silence and isolation. Elisa’s life is changed forever when she and co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) discover a secret classified experiment.
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Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Michael Stuhlbarg and Doug Jones also star in the film.
Considering that the film incorporates a creature that lives in the water, many began theorizing that the film could secretly be a prequel to del Toro’s Hellboy films, telling the tale of Abe Sapien. Del Toro has publicly denied this rumor and, with the film having recently screened at the Venice Film Festival, reviews have confirmed that theory to be false.
The filmmaker has given comic book fans some of the best adaptations of their favorite characters thanks to Hellboy, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and Blade II, but it’s his more ambitious work that has garnered him more acclaim.
In 2006, Pan’s Labyrinth told the tale of a young girl escaping from her horrific daily life by imagining a world full of fantastical and terrifying creatures. The film blended heart with horror, giving audiences some of the most frightening monsters of the year.
Pan’s Labyrinth won the Academy Award for cinematography, art direction, and makeup, in addition to a variety of other accolades it received that year.
Not being relegated to merely one genre, del Toro also scored a huge hit with Pacific Rim, the action-adventure film about giant monsters invading our planet and the pilots who used giant mech suits to combat that. That film earned a sequel, which hits theaters in February of next year.
The Shape of Water lands in theaters December 8.
