As part of a special feature on Criterion’s Blu-ray and DVD editions of his film Cronos, director Guillermo del Toro leads a tour of his home offices, which he fondly dubs “Bleak House.” They’re not bleak, but they are a bit creepy, with rubber monsters and real-life “specimens” covering every surface. Del Toro explains that the offices were created as a “compression chamber” so that he and his co-workers and collaborators could be “stimulated not just by what is called high art or fine art but by even the powerful images that come from toys or pop art or vivid imaginations. So everything in the house for me has equal importance, whether it’s a rubber toy or an anatomical model, whatever it is, it’s here to try to provoke a shock to the system, circulating the lifeblood of imagination, which I think is curiosity.” Click through to take a tour of Del Toro’s personal Bleak House, stuffed-to-the-gills with creepy figures and memorabilia — you might just get a little inspiration, if you get out alive.
[via Criterion]