For those who don’t know, Mexican writer/director Guillermo Del Toro isn’t just active in the horror and fantasy genres, he’s also a fan of them like you and me, and has spent years assembling an enviable collection of props, personal drawing, note, and sketches, and other assorted memorabilia, at his home in the LA burbs, which he calls “Bleak House”.  The exhibition is scheduled to only make three stops in the US, before heading to Mexico for the final setup.  Here I’m fortunate to live in the Minneapolis/St Paul, where the exhibition is on display at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts until the end of May, and went to see it last Friday with my wife and daughter.  Del Toro is a real hit and miss director for me.  Of all his work, the only movies of his I’ve truly loved are The Devil’s Backbone, and Pan’s Labyrinth.  His Hollywood movies, such as the Hellboy movies, and Pacific Rim leave me utterly cold.  A professed fan of H.P. Lovecraft (my own personal idol when it comes to writing), he’s long expressed a desire to film an adaptation of arguably Lovecraft’s greatest work, At The Mountains Of Madness – a project that had, at one point, Tom Cruise attached to star.  I still hope Del Toro can get it made – he may be the only name filmmaker out there who can do justice to the material.

If you want to read more about the exhibition, there are plenty of links, and this blog post isn’t going to be a retrospective of Del Toro or his work, just a collection of the pictures I took of the exhibition.  But here’s a little about it, from the man himself.

But you came here to see some pictures, right?  Onward, friends!

Astonishingly lifelike full size sculpture of HP Lovecraft!  This was my personal favourite piece.

Del Toro’s also a fan of John Byrne’s legendary run on the FF, as seen below, as well as comics in general.  Me too!

These full size props of the Monster and the Bride are incredible, so too the detail on Doctor Pretorius.