DEL TORO’S NEW MASTERPIECE?

Guillermo del Toro’s new movie “The Shape Of Water” premiered at the Venice Film Festival last week, and later at the Telluride Film Festival. Del Toro said the movie was inspired by the love he felt at age six for the classic “Creature from the Black Lagoon.” The two films are connected, but “The Shape Of Water” will obviously have a much higher budget and better visual effects. It’s a horror movie/love story between a human and a humanoid creature. The movie is set in 1950’s Baltimore, and it tells the story of a mute woman (Sally Hawkins) who works as a janitor at a hidden, high security government laboratory. Elisa discovers a creature one night that was recently moved to the facility. The government is keeping the creature there for research. Some at the laboratory think that it should be dissected while some think they should study it while it’s alive. Dmitri (Michael Stuhlberg), a Russian scientist spy, is trying to destroy the creature so that America can’t benefit from it or learn from it. Elisa becomes fascinated with the creature then falls in love with it. The amphibious creature comes from the Amazon, where it was worshipped like a god by the natives. The trailer shows the two listening to music together and sharing hard-boiled eggs. Elisa signs to a friend that the creature doesn’t see her as incomplete, that it sees her as who she is. She only shares her secret romance with her coworker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) and her neighbor (Richard Jenkins). This mash-up of “Beauty and the Beast” and “Creature from the Black Lagoon” will be released in theaters on December 8th of this year.