These Are Hands Down the Best 5 Minutes in a Guillermo Del Toro Movie Ever and I’m Not Hearing Any Objections

Guillermo Del Torois one of the best fantasy directors working today, and his award-winning 2006 dark fantasy war film, Pan’s Labyrinth, still stands as his magnum opus. Set shortly after the Spanish Civil War in the early years of the Francoist dictatorship, Pan’s Labyrinth draws from fairy tales and is, in part, a twisted take on Alice in Wonderland, combining fantasy with the brutality of war. After Pan’s Labyrinth, he went on to direct a number of other dark fantasy films, like Crimson Peakand the Best Picture winner The Shape of Water, but no scene epitomizes the best of Del Toro’s work quite like Ofelia’s (Ivana Baquero) introduction to the Pale Man (Doug Jones) in Pan’s Labyrinth, which even made Stephen King squirm. Just over five minutes long, the Pale Man scene highlights the film’s similarities to Alice in Wonderland, but Ofelia’s journey down the rabbit hole is downright horrifying and introduces us to one of the most iconic movie monsters of all time.