I have a schizophrenic career. I have 'Cronos' and 'The Devil's Backbone' on one hand, and then I have 'Blade 2' and 'Mimic' on the other.

I think that most of the monsters I dream of, I dreamt of as a child.

If you give an actor a green screen, the shot may work, but that green screen will not inspire you on the set as a director or as an actor.

I'm a lapsed altar boy.

For eight years I did effects for other movies until I got my movie made.

What happens to me is that I am first and foremost a film geek.

When I was a teenager there was no video in my country. Betamax came to Mexico very slowly.

I see horror as part of legitimate film. I don't see it as an independent genre that has nothing to do with the rest of cinema.

Hellboy is the first movie where both ends of the spectrum are combined.

I think that The Eye is a particularly Americanized take on horror.

Well I think effects are tools.

In that, Blade 2 is very much like a rock concert... if it's too loud, you're too old.

I like John Carpenter. I like some of his films more than others.

I started when I was eight, doing super 8 films.

I was directing before I knew it was called that.

I'd grab the camera and tell people what to do, and when I was 14, someone told me that it was called directing.

There are two levels of vampirism: one is the regular vampire, which is just like it has always been; and then there's the super vampires, which are a new breed we've created.

It's only in modern times that we have come to glorify vampirism.

They're getting more and more experience on what to expect, and the Hellboy audience is such a faithful and fanatic audience as I am, and you have to really be very open about what you do.

I think there are movies that are so gigantic that you need a second unit.

I think Hollywood has a habit of developing 100 times more than they actually shoot.

I hope to continue doing TV, and I think that what I've learned on 'The Strain' will come in handy.

A lot of Mexican Catholic dogma, the way it's taught, it's about existing in a state of grace, which I found impossible to reconcile with the much darker view of the world and myself, even as a child.

Monsters are evangelical creatures for me.

Love is love. And it's much better than hatred and fear.

To me, the thing love and cinema have in common is that they are about seeing. The greatest act of love you can give to anyone is to see them exactly as they are. That's the greatest act of love because you wash away imperfections.

When you start with Super 8, you are everything. You're the DP, the sound man, the effects guy. And what I started understanding, by working for other people, is that the best type of director is someone who rose through the ranks.

Every Sunday on Channel 6 in Guadalajara, where I lived, they dedicated most every Sunday to black-and-white horror films and sci-fi. So I watched them. I watched 'Tarantula.' I watched 'The Monolith Monsters.' I watched all the Universal library.

I want to live in a space that I designed, that is for me.

In the case of 'Shape Of Water,' I want it to feel like a song. I wanted people to come out of the movie humming the movie.

I don't think there is life beyond death. I don't. But I do believe that we get this clarity in the last minute of our life. The titles we achieved, the honors we managed, they all vanish. You are left alone with you and your deeds and the things you didn't do.

I have a very promiscuous relationship with all my objects.

When I was a child, I was raised Catholic. Somewhere, I didn't fit with the saints and holy men. I discovered the monsters - in Boris Karloff, I saw a beautiful, innocent creature in a state of grace, sacrificed by sins he did not commit.

There's nothing more political than fantasy.

I'm always very, very careful when the movies happen and where they happen.

I think looking is the essential act of loving. Brothers, fathers and sons, lovers, whatever. What you do when you love someone is look at that person as that person is.

I think that evil is a spiritual engine in our world, our lives, our universe, that functions in order to create good.

I believe that we, every day, 24-7, all the days of our lives, we are, all of us, agents of construction and agents of destruction.

Insects are living metaphors for me. They are so alien and so remote and so perfect, but also they are emotionless; they don't have any human or mammalian instincts. They'll eat their young at the drop of a hat; they can eat your house! There's no empathy - none.

I have said no to many, many Day of the Dead projects in the past, about 10 or 15, because every time I heard a take it was from someone who didn't know the celebration.

Ultimately, you walk life side-by-side with death, and the Day of the Dead, curiously enough, is about life. It's an impulse that's intrinsic to the Mexican character.

I think we live in a culture that is actually hedging all of it towards comfort and immediacy, things that scare me. All the things that they sell us as a way of life scare me.

TV now, you have to plan it: you structure it for binge watching, meaning you structure the whole season like a three-act play. You have a first act - the first third of the season - second act is the middle third, and you structure it like that.

As a director, I design every movie to be true to itself, and damn it if they like it, and damn it if they don't.

'Crimson' is written in a very particular style, and it's very precise in the way it graduates into a gothic romance. The souls that will connect with it will connect deeply.

I truly try to create beauty and reflection and all of that as conscientiously and judiciously and minutely as I can.

You cannot dictate what people find funny, what people find attractive, or what people find scary. There is not a norm.

I don't try to sanction other people's joy in monsters. I mean, I think the fact is, humor, fantasy - you know, like fear, desire or laughter - create genres of their own: comedy, melodrama, or erotic films or horror films... The boundaries cannot be defined. It's to each his own.

Every project that you write about or read about, it goes through years of hard work. We write a screenplay; we design. Then you submit those and the budget, and it's out of your hands.

I would have killed to do 'Beauty And The Beast' at Warners, which went away. I would have killed to do 'The Witches' at Warners that went away. God knows there are many, many of them. All I can do is diligently do the screenplay, diligently do the design work, deliver a budget, and then await a decision.