Age: 61
male
Guillermo del Toro Gómez (Spanish: [ɡiˈʝeɾmo ðelˈtoɾo]; born 9 October 1964) is a Mexican filmmaker, author, and artist. His work has been characterized by a strong connection to fairy tales, gothicism, and horror, often blending the genres to infuse visual or poetic beauty into the grotesque. He has had a lifelong fascination with monsters, which he considers symbols of great power. He is known for pioneering dark fantasy in the film industry and using insectile and religious imagery, his themes of Catholicism, and celebrating imperfection, underworld motifs, practical special effects, and dominant amber lighting. Throughout his career, del Toro has shifted between Spanish-language films—such as Cronos (1993), The Devil's Backbone (2001), and Pan's Labyrinth (2006)—and English-language films, including Mimic (1997), Blade II (2002), Hellboy (2004) and its sequel Hellboy II: The Golden Army(2008), Pacific Rim (2013), Crimson Peak (2015), The Shape of Water (2017), Nightmare Alley (2021), and Pinocchio (2022). As a producer or writer, he worked on the films The Orphanage (2007), Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010), The Hobbit film series (2012–2014), Mama (2013), The Book of Life (2014), Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019), and The Witches (2020). In 2022, he created the Netflix anthology horror series Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities, featuring a collection of classical horror stories. With Chuck Hogan, he co-authored The Strain trilogy of novels (2009–2011), which was later adapted into a comic book series (2011–15) and a live-action television series (2014–17). With DreamWorks Animation and Netflix, he created the animated franchise Tales of Arcadia, which includes the series Trollhunters (2016–18), 3Below (2018–19), and Wizards (2020) and the sequel film Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans (2021). Del Toro is close friends with fellow Mexican filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro G. Iñárritu, collectively known as "The Three Amigos of Mexican Cinema". He has received several awards, including three Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, a Daytime Emmy Award, and a Golden Lion. He was included in Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018, and he received a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2019.
This story is inspired by a novel by the Czech writer Viktor Dyk. One day, the mysterious Pied Piper appears in the Hanseatic city of Hameln to use his magic whistle to exorcise all the rats that have been plaguing the city's inhabitants. The town council offered him 100 gold pieces for this service. The Pied Piper fulfilled his task and led all the rats into the river by playing his whistle. But before that, he met a local girl, Agnes, and the two fell in love. After completing his work, he decided to stay in Hameln to live with Agnes. Moreover, he had not yet been paid. One day, the Pied Piper approaches the town council in a local pub and asks for his reward. However, they refuse to pay him because they feel he has done his job too easily. This leads to an argument between them. After a conflict with the councilors and after discovering that Agnes is pregnant with the unwanted child of her former lover Kristian, the Pied Piper decides to leave the city. But his love for Agnes is stronger than his will and forces him to return. He cannot find her anywhere, however, and when he discovers that she has killed herself by jumping into the river out of grief, he decides to use his whistle to lead the whole town to the edge of the abyss of Mount Koppel. He does so not for the money that should have been paid to him, but out of grief for his failed love. When he was alone above the abyss, he threw away his whistle and also threw himself into the abyss.
