New Guillermo del Toro movie looks beautiful and terrifying

Though Guillermo del Toro took Hollywood by storm with movies like Hellboy and Pacific Rim, he truly made his mark with gothic indies like the Oscar-winning Pan's Labyrinth and the sumptuous Crimson Peak. Now he's back with The Shape of Water, another intimate look at the inner lives of monsters and the humans who love them.

Anyone who has been immersed in del Toro's lush, magical films knows he's a master of design, especially when it comes to creatures. Nearly all of his movies deal with the idea that monsters are better people than their human counterparts, and he always manages to get us to identify with giant hellbeasts and gore-soaked ghosts. Though del Toro's monsters have always been mesmerizing and gorgeous, The Shape of Water is the first of his movies to deal overtly with a human falling in love with one of these otherworldly creatures.

Like Pan's Labyrinth and Crimson Peak, The Shape of Water is also a period piece. Set in the early 1960s during the Cold War, it's about Elisa (Sally Hawkins), a mute janitor working at what seems to be a top-secret government facility. She's assigned to clean a lab where the government has imprisoned a beautiful, intelligent fish-like man (Doug Jones), sort of a glimmering cross between the Creature from the Black Lagoon and Aquaman.