Guillermo Del Toro on Pan's Labyrinth

The Mexican director of Hellboy discusses magic, monsters, torturing his cast and the abiding appeal of fantasy

Few movie directors have created a catalogue of work as distinctive as that of Guillermo Del Toro. His determination to make visually ravishing horror movies has resulted in some of the most bizarrely memorable cinematic images in recent memory, from the low-budget terror of 1993's Cronos to the comic-strip action of 2004's Hellboy. It's this quest to explore the stranger side of horror that has led to his latest and arguably best film, the Spanish-language dark fairy tale Pan's Labyrinth.

Having flown into London the previous night for a preview screening at the 2006 Zone Horror Frightfest festival (only the second public showing for Pan's Labyrinth since its acclaimed debut at Cannes), the jet-lagged 42-year-old Mexican director is still full of energy, and riding the crest of the reception it received.

"It was a sigh of relief for me. It's been a long road getting here, and it's really gratifying to see a genre audience enjoying it, because it's a shocking movie in any context," he says. "The fantasy elements are strong, but so are the real world elements. It's kind of a 'What the fuck?' experience!"

Set in 1940s Spain during the violent aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and acting as a companion movie to Del Toro's The Devil's Backbone, Pan's Labyrinth is the story of Ofelia (Ivana Banquero), a bookish and imaginative 11-year-old girl who moves with her sickly pregnant mother to live with her new father, a brutal fascist Army captain (Sergi López). In an attempt to retreat from this grim reality, she enters a lush fantasy world that might only exist in her own head, where she meets a wizened, half-man, half-goat creature named Pan (Doug Jones). Here, she's given a chance to escape forever, but first has to perform three dangerous tasks. The story soon takes a disturbing look at one of Del Toro's main preoccupations - the conflict between childhood innocence and the harshness of the real world.

Next page •"My movies are about who you are in a world that tells you magic doesn't exist, and where you choose to believe in magic"