Mimic (1997)
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
A disease carried by common cockroaches is killing Manhattan children. In an effort to stop the epidemic an entomologist, Susan Tyler, creates a mutant breed of insect that secretes a fluid to kill the roaches. This mutant breed was engineered to die after one generation, but three years later Susan finds out that the species has survived and evolved into a large, gruesome monster that can mimic human form.
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What critics compared Mimic to
"Mama" was produced by Guillermo del Toro, the masterly Mexican director of such action fantasies as "Mimic," "Hellboy" and the memorably lyrical "Pan's Labyrinth."
And, we know from his “Mimic” days that kids are fair game.
Us is intelligently ambitious, as Peele takes the more unusual elements of Get Out and runs with it, embracing the oddness wholesale to create a story that is like Stephen King married with Romero's Dawn of the Dead by way of Guillermo del Toro's Mimic .
Stahelski also elevates the film by getting Guillermo del Toro's cinematographer from "Mimic" and "Crimson Peak" to shoot his film and saturate it in rich colors.
This is not the best work from either production company; it feels instead like something done in spare time (unfortunate comparisons to 1997's Guillermo del Toro vehicle "Mimic" are likely).
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Besides, even if it is certainly his most uncharacteristic and money-poisoned film since at least Mimic (which I have never, anyway, seen), it has been directed by Guillermo del Toro, and there's no way of taking all of the interesting bits out of a Guillermo del Toro movie.
Like Tim Burton before he got swallowed by his own eccentricities, del Toro enjoys making movies that are informed by an off-kilter sensibility which brings out the children's-tale unease that rests at the heart of many sterling horror yarns: Pan's Labyrinth, Cronos, The Devil's Backbone and the Hollywood-sanctioned Mimic all tapped into this universal sense of dread, and even his Hellboy and Blade outings displayed similar flashes.
Still, del Toro includes some playfully grotesque flourishes to remind us of his "Mimic" days.
From his intimate work in Pan’s Labyrinth to his bombastic romp through Hellboy to his mastery of dread-filled tone in Mimic, del Toro has proven that he not only has an eye for stunning visuals in terms of creature design and composition, but that he is also able to keep a firm handle on the human core of even his nonhuman characters.
Since his 1993 feature debut with the sleek horror film Cronos, made in his native Mexico, del Toro has been quite the globe-trotting auteur, shooting in the U.S. (Mimic), the Czech Republic (Blade II and Hellboy), Hungary (Hellboy II: The Golden Army) and, for Pacific Rim, Canada.
There was a time when one looked forward to a new film by Guillermo del Toro with great anticipation—back when he was turning out haunting smaller pictures like “Cronos,” “The Devil’s Backbone” and “Pan’s Labyrinth,” and even “Mimic.”
Almost every 90’s monster flick can be traced to the archetype, from Mimic to Deep Rising and even to the 1998 remake of Godzilla.
Mexican horror master Guillermo del Toro ("Mimic," "Blade II") swings for the bleachers in his third Hollywood outing and scores a very respectable triple.
Instead, director/screenwriter Guillermo del Toro ("Mimic") all but abandons these subtleties for senses-dulling excess.
Mexican writer-director Guillermo del Toro previously brought us vampires in Cronos and Blade II, ghosts in The Devil's Backbone and oversized cockroaches in Mimic, demonstrating that he clearly has an affinity for creature features.
Myer is sent to Section 51 and enters a chamber that looks preserved from the 1940's, all except for the wall enclosing a tank which houses Abe Sapien (Doug Jones, "Mimic," voice of David Hyde Pierce, "Down with Love"), a Mer-man who demands that the pages of multiple books be turned.
On a shoestring, he has made such subtle, creepy and memorable genre films as the neo-vampire saga "Cronos", the Bava-influenced ghost story "The Devils Backbone" and the giant cockroach epic "Mimic" (and yes, there can be such a thing as a subtle movie about giant cockroaches).
Not exactly minor del Toro (see lesser works such as Pacific Rim and Mimic for that honor), it’s certainly not his best.
Del Toro always loves his monsters - think of the fighting behemoths in "Pacific Rim" or the insectoids of "Mimic" - but here, the monster isn't the one in chains under observation but the one who put him there.
Del Toro has at times placed monsters ahead of humans in his storytelling — Crimson Peak and Mimic come to mind — but he and co-writer Vanessa Taylor ( Divergent ) get the balance right this time.
Even in films like Mimic, where his giant cockroaches kill the hell out of the human characters, del Toro always has a degree of sympathy for them.
The production design (Paul Denham Austerberry) and cinematographer (Dan Laustsen (a collaborator with del Toro on Mimic and Crimson Peak ) are mesmerizing.
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Tom Hiddleston dances with a flame while moths and butterflies fall, a Lynchian interlude of bugs eating bugs fitting for a film co-written by Matthew Robbins, with whom del Toro worked on his first English-language feature, Mimic .
Cowriter (with Matthew Robbins, "Mimic")/director Guillermo del Toro ("Pan's Labyrinth") has indulged his Gothic sensibilities with this insanely lush paean to Hammer Horrors, a cross between Jane Eyre, Bluebeard and Hitchcock's "Rebecca" capped off with a gush of Grand Guignol.
Del Toro and cinematographer Dan Laustsen (who worked together on 1997’s Mimic ) are clearly having a blast painting every corner of their creepy crimson canvas.
Though del Toro is a master of macabre visuals, his screenplay (written with his “Mimic” collaborator Matthew Robbins) is filled with cliches, and frequently sets aside the supernatural story line — along with any attendant suspense — to focus on blunt tropes more familiar to fans of the violent-psychopath genre.
Aided by cinematographer Dan Lausten, with whom del Toro last collaborated to construct the subterranean horrors of “Mimic,” the filmmaker develops a prolonged finale at the decrepit mansion with a blend of minimalism and grand visionary conceits.
Written by del Toro and veteran Matthew Robbins (Sugarland Express, Mimic), Crimson Peak ( ) uses misdirection to its advantage, as del Toro edges toward expectations, and then delivers something else entirely.
He did both in a 2001 release, The Devil’s Backbone; and if you want to go even further back in his career, into his ostensibly pure genre movies, you might note that his insect-fear masterpiece, Mimic, is at heart concerned with the world of an autistic boy.
The artistry evident even in "Mimic" and "Hellboy" is confirmed in spades in his new work, a lock for an Oscar nomination as best foreign language film.
Guillermo del Toro had been one of the more promising fantasists working in film: Hellboy was too laborious for my liking, but Mimic was punchy pulp fiction, Blade 2 was that rare sequel that surpassed the original, and his Spanish-language spook story The Devil's Backbone was memorably eerie.
And so it is with del Toro ( Mimic ), in his approach to the fantasy life that Ofelia retreats into in these dire circumstances.
He has long been an admirer and practitioner of the Gothic horror film, beginning with his first film, Cronos, in 1993, followed by Mimic (1997), a wild horror film about genetically engineered insects; Blade II (2002), a vampire-versus-mutant contest of good and evil; and Hellboy (2004), the well-regarded adaptation of the Dark Horse graphic novels by Mike Magnola, about a supernatural creature employed by the United States government as a “secret weapon” against its paranormal enemies.
While his earlier movies had whiffs of soul, they looked like classic horror pictures -- the vampire flicks "Cronos" and "Blade II" -- or overcooked science fiction, like 1996's "Mimic," with Mira Sorvino and its giant subway-dwelling bugs.