A Guillermo del Toro, a Mexican filmmaker who specializes in fantasy and supernatural, was born in 1944 in Guadalajara. Prior to her debut in 1993 with Vampire Story, she worked as a special effects makeup designer. Cronos. Ghost stories – He went on to make two highly acclaimed supernatural films in Spain The devil’s backbone And Face meWhich sets the imaginary stories against the backdrop of the Franco dictatorship. His work in Hollywood includes two Hellboy Movies, Japanese-themed robot-v-monsters are epic Pacific Rim And Gothic drama Crimson Peak. The size of the water (2017), a love story about a woman and an amphibian, won multiple awards and the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, including an Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director.

He is preparing a stop-motion version Pinocchio, With voice artists including Tilda Sweeton and Evan McGregor. He recently launched WizardsThird Arcadia story The children’s CGI animation series trilogy is currently airing on Netflix. And he’s just released a new fantasy novel, The empty, In collaboration with his co-author Chuck Hogan on the book Trilogy StrainWhich also made a TV series. Set in modern-Manhattan, the deep south of the early 60s and Elizabeth England, The empty Immortal detective Hugo Blackwood pays tribute to fiction writer Algaron Blackwood

Del Toro talks about novels and other projects over the phone from Toronto, where he has just begun work on his feature film When nightmares come, Production was shut down in March due to a coronavirus lockdown. Starring Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett and Willem Dafoe, it is based on the 1946 novel by William Lindsay Gresham and tells the story of a relationship between a crooked carnival worker and a psychiatrist.

The empty A very diverse genre hybrid. It starts to feel like a Jack Richer crime thriller but then you bring in your character Hugo Blackwood, Van HelsingStyle monster hunter
It starts with a mixture that comes back for a while [19th-century] Irish writer Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, one of the best ghost story writers. He came up with a character named Dr. Martin Hesselius, who was a secret investigator in a certain way. Algaron Blackwood then created a genre with John Silence, a physician slash psychic detective, combining procedural and supernatural phenomena for the first time. It continued in the era of pulp literature – it was a very strange subgenre in horror fiction.

You Dedicate the Book to Old-School Horror / Fantasy Authors – Algaron Blackwood, Lord Dunsani, Arthur Dr.. What is it about the Edwardian / Victorian fantasy that excites you?
What I like about Blackwood is the supernatural one given in his stories – different, say, Tease in the baskervilles, Where you have a very anxious environment and legends and myths but you can discover more natural, procedural reasons for the case. With Blackwood’s John Silence stories you won’t go on to discover that it was a gang of smugglers disguised as ghosts – you’re confronted with the real supernatural.

There is a note at the beginning of your book claiming to be a grave robbery A big event in New Jersey. Really?
Yes, that was the source of this whole thing. I saw a newspaper story about how they found human remains in a garage pitcher and the police linked it to a serious robbery. I began research and found that serious robberies had almost reached epidemic numbers in New Jersey. I thought, it’s interesting – we can come back to the Mesopotamian entity and a detective that you can call Wall Street in modern times.

Your story deals with some of the most difficult areas of American history – Deep Southern, slavery, the Klan Given the high sensitivity around such themes at the moment, are you worried that people might think they are not suitable for generic fiction?
Okay, we started writing it five or six years ago. I think so [African American FBI man] Agent Solomon is a really strong character in the book. The book is not just about miracles, it is about evil in various forms. I think fiction can work to address the real world. You need to be aware of these issues; The combination has to be done carefully – by these things of the past America is still marked by horror and the concept in many ways.

You are an active Twitter user, mixing your cultural impulses with political comments. For example, you mentioned the recent death of Giovanni Lopez, who was killed after being arrested in the state for not wearing a mask. Jalisco.
This is unfortunately not an isolated incident, it has happened in other states in Mexico as well. What the reality reveals is the shocking fact that we live in Mexico every day, which inflames the police with criminals – it’s almost a complete symbiosis. The way you reacted to the police in Mexico was with a lot of caution and disbelief. This is the only case that has been proven to have received evidence of almost insane contradictions from anyone during the epidemic that injured or killed people who are thought to be enforcing health laws.

What do you enjoy about social media?
You need to use it carefully. In my life, I’ve ruined art-based f things with things that I believe politically – that’s true of my movies, it’s true of my Twitter account, it’s true of my daily life. I think all I need to do on social media is point people to dramas or movies or picture or image creators that can enrich them, and it’s probably not well known. I don’t try to take part in chipping in scams or dividing pillars. I try to use it as a positive, enriching platform.

You recently tweeted about RiSilent Movies, New Mexican Movies Released কী What Do You See Late?
I can tweet 20 times a day – I won’t be careful because there’s a part of your life that just needs to be there for you. But two days ago, on Jean Kelly’s birthday, I saw four of his movies, and not what you imagined – Pirates, For me and my cheeks… most of my time is spent renewing – say, a Douglas Sark melodrama or thriller, like Sleep, my love. My habit with epidemics was to screen at least three movies a day. I was completely isolated and socially isolated in Toronto the first week and then locked down for an equal amount of time in California. You have 18 hours without going to the office and you can dedicate nine hours to work and nine hours for three movies and still have time to take care of your basic needs. It is a blessing to have time. I am very lucky to be able to work from home, so I try not to waste it.

What about your animation series, Arcadia story? What took you to this region?
I wanted to fill a family viewing experience, it was with me when I was younger. I grew up with the Osamu Tezuka anime – in Mexico in the 1990s, we invaded Japanese anime. I remember Astro Boy – This is a very rare story, you know, and Tezuka has this feeling in general. I thought, can we do the classic “hero ride”, but use it to talk about the loss?

You are also adding your stop-motion Pinocchio In the long list of versions of the story. And you Familiar with being fascinated Frankenstein – So yours Pinocchio To be a kind of Frankenstein story?
To me, they are not exactly the same, but they are the same. They are both creatures that have been thrown into a created world that they have to figure out on their own. They both deal with their confidence as they choose to embark on their play activities. I think Pinocchio This can be a great opportunity to talk about disobedience. Obedience is not a virtue, it is a burden. The seeds of disobedience cause – this is a desirable way to achieve your own soul. I thought it might be an interesting background for Pinocchio, if we set it up during the rise of Mussolini – an interesting time for dolls that refuse to comply.

What can we expect When nightmares come?
There was a moment in the American letter, where modern America began to address this underbelly – which was almost transmitted by Nor’s writing, gentle detective and novels. But there are other parts of the writing, e.g. The Day of locusts, They shoot horses, don’t they? And When nightmares come, Which addresses this intersection of modern and visceral in a very interesting way. The original novel, when it was written, was at odds with the modern concept of psychoanalysis, somehow jammed with the magical powers of Tarot, and the concept of delusional and spiritual travel was used to deceive the guilty.

It’s a really interesting mix of things – I don’t like things directly, I like to put things together that theoretically shouldn’t go together. Like the post-Civil War battle between Spain and fairy tales; Or a Douglas Sark melodrama mix with an amphibian deity and a sex-awakened love story.

• The empty Published by Guillermo del Toro and by Chuck Hogan del Rey (20 20). Visit GuardianBookshop.com to order a copy. Free UK P&P over 15