Academy award-winning director Guillermo del Toro is back with his next film, Nightmare Alley, and it looks like a return to his sinister film roots. Based on the 1946 novel of the same name, Nightmare Alleyis a bit of a creative detour for del Toro, who explained In a new interview with Vanity Fair that the film isn’t fantasy or horror. The trailer shows that del Toro’s candy-coated, lush nightmare aesthetic is still alive and well.
“Bradley Cooper stars as Stanton Carlisle, a former carnival worker who becomes a big-city star as a nightclub performer, using cold-reading tricks he picked up in the sideshow to create the impression he is a powerful mind reader,” According to Vanity Fair. “Now the marks and rubes he targets are millionaires. Cate Blanchett plays Dr. Lilith Ritter, a psychiatrist who first tries to expose him as a charlatan, then becomes embroiled in his schemes.” Toni Collette and Richard Jenkins are also stars.
The Shape of Water director explained that fans of his work might be shocked about where the film goes. “That is a distinct possibility,” del Toro toldVanity Fair.“It has happened to me in the past withCrimson Peak, where people went in expecting a horror movie. I knew it was a gothic romance, but it wasn’t easy to put that across. But yes, this has no supernatural element. It’s based completely in the real world. There is nothing fantastic. It’s a very different movie from my usual, but yes, the title and my name would create that [impression].”
Cooper shared earlier this year that the pandemic was making filming difficult. “We shot the second half before the first half,” Cooperexplainedat the Tribeca Film Festival. “We didn’t want to do it that way. Things happened to us, with sets and other actors’ availability and water, the snow and all that. I was the cause. I had moved to New York and said, ‘I can’t do it right now. Let me get settled.'”
“It was a blessing,” Del Toro was also present at the event. “I believe wholeheartedly life gives you what you need, not what you want. You have a window to look at everything. It was incredible. We got to see these characters when [Cooper’s Stanton Carlisle] was full of himself and arrogant and certain and seeking. We were able to go back six months between all this and were able to analyze and see that character and what we needed to rewrite to go back to a set. If your pores are open, the movie finds you. Each movie tells you what it needs.” Nightmare Alley hits theaters on Dec. 17.