"Pan's Labyrinth"

I took a break from my Masters of Horror-thon to watch a "real" movie.

Guillermo Del Toro gained my appreciation with 2002's Blade II, an awesome improvement on the original. He followed up with the Ron Perlman love-fest Hellboy -- a movie I never get tired of.

Pan's Labyrinth is the story of a young girl in the midst of the Spanish Civil War, dealing with her evil fascist stepfather whilst moving in and out of a beautifully photographed and designed fairy-tale world. The film is in Spanish, so it's not for subtitle-phobes.

Del Toro continues to show the kind of love for fantasy that only a geek could generate. His attachment at one time to a John Carter of Mars project caused geekgasms across the board (he has since been disassociated from the property).

I experienced some confusion at first due to my lack of knowledge about the Spanish Civil War. As I tried to discern which ones were the fascists, I should've realized they were the ones in the spiffy uniforms.