Monster Master

You might have forgotten during all the kaiju punching of Pacific Rim, but Guillermo del Toro has a knack for creating the creepiest damn monsters of his generation. This weekend, the director returns to his gothic-horror roots with Crimson Peak, an old-school haunted-house flick with Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain and enough ghosts to fuel nightmares for years. If they're anything like the past, there are going to be a lot of wet seats in the house.

Santi (The Devil's Backbone)

Del Toro's way with chilling spirits came to the fore with Santi, the ghoulish, prophetic ghost of a slain child who wanders a Spanish Civil War-era orphanage, a crack in his head leaking blood into the air as if he were underwater.

The Pale Man (Pan's Labyrinth)

When people talk about Pan's Labyrinth, they inevitably say the people in the story are more terrifying than its monsters. Then they remember the Pale Man. A child-eating, flappy-skinned vision of hell with eyeballs in his hands and a lumbering gait, he looks like something deemed too horrifying for a Marilyn Manson video.

Karl Ruprecht Kroenen (Hellboy)

How do you make a steampunk Nazi robot killing machine with swords shooting out from under his jacket sleeves look more intimidating? Start by making the body underneath that SS uniform a scarred, eyelidless monstrosity that resembles the sloth victim from Seven.

Reapers (Blade II)

Del Toro's second foray into vampirism pits the Daywalker against the Reapers, who prey on humanity and vampires alike by splitting their jaws in half at the chin to reveal a gaping, fanged maw with an Alien-like tongue that bores into arteries. It's disgusting and disarming every single time, which is often, because Blade II is great.

Angel of Death (Hellboy II)

Hellboy II is packed with fantastic creatures, but they look like teddy bears compared with the Angel of Death. Played by del Toro's go-to monster actor Doug Jones, the cloaked figure has a blind, spadelike face sprouting gnarled teeth and a set of sprawling wings dotted with all-seeing eyes. Even in a light comic-book film, del Toro can make you squirm. AP KRYZA.

see it: Crimson Peak is rated R. It opens Friday at most Portland-area theaters.

Willamette Week