Nightmare Alley and Other Stories from Guillermo Del Toro
If you haven’t heard, Guillermo Del Toro is back with another movie Nightmare Alley, a remake of a midcentury movie by the same name. In the pulp noir-style film, viewers are taken on a journey to 1940s New York where an unlucky criminal with a knack for mentalism plots a con against a dangerous tycoon. Guillermo Del Toro pulls out of the tricks in Nightmare Alley. Some of his fans will recognize Del Toro’s unyielding champion for the underdog and his deep dive into absurdism, a commonality across many of his stories. With appealing side characters, marvelous curiosities, and an ambitious outsider whose actions always seem to work against him, it’s no wonder why people are rushing to the theaters to catch this new film. Yes, there is mystery and mischief and an atmosphere dark and ominous. There’s a unique Del Toroian quality to this story despite being an adaptation. As a director, Guillermo Del Toro leaves his mark on a story. He promises a ride you’ll never forget and he always delivers. That’s why we keep reading (and watching) what he comes out with next. For those like us who can’t get enough of Guillermo Del Toro’s work, here are four books we think you’ll enjoy.
A Boeing 777 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold.
In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing . . .
So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets. Eph, who is joined by Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city—a city that includes his wife and son—before it is too late.
Oscar winning writer-director Guillermo del Toro and bestselling author Cornelia Funke have come together to transform del Toro’s hit movie Pan’s Labyrinth into an epic and dark fantasy novel for readers of all ages, complete with haunting illustrations and enchanting short stories that flesh out the folklore of this fascinating world.
This spellbinding tale takes readers to a sinister, magical, and war-torn world filled with richly drawn characters like trickster fauns, murderous soldiers, child-eating monsters, courageous rebels, and a long-lost princess hoping to be reunited with her family.
Related: Unfold the Secrets Hidden Within These Action-Packed Mysteries
It is 1962, and Elisa Esposito—mute her whole life, orphaned as a child—is struggling with her humdrum existence as a janitor working the graveyard shift at Baltimore’s Occam Aerospace Research Center. Were it not for Zelda, a protective coworker, and Giles, her loving neighbor, she doesn’t know how she’d make it through the day.
Then, one fateful night, she sees something she was never meant to see, the Center’s most sensitive asset ever: an amphibious man, captured in the Amazon, to be studied for Cold War advancements. The creature is terrifying but also magnificent, capable of language and of understanding emotions…and Elisa can’t keep away. Using sign language, the two learn to communicate. Soon, affection turns into love, and the creature becomes Elisa’s sole reason to live.
But outside forces are pressing in. Richard Strickland, the obsessed soldier who tracked the asset through the Amazon, wants nothing more than to dissect it before the Russians get a chance to steal it. Elisa has no choice but to risk everything to save her beloved. With the help of Zelda and Giles, Elisa hatches a plan to break out the creature. But Strickland is on to them. And the Russians are, indeed, coming.
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