Review Tuesday: The Shape of Water [2017]

 

THE SHAPE OF WATER

During the space race portion of the Cold War, American scientists experiment on a curious life form. 

When THE SHAPE OF WATER come out, I had a mild interest in it, but never got around to watching it. Being some sort of a science fiction monster movie, Mrs. Baxojayz had little interest in it. With so many other movies I wanted to see more, this movie kept getting pushed farther down the list until last month when it was one of the in-flight movies offered. Hey! Why not?

Guillermo Del Toro was planning a movie adaptation of AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS when Ridly Scott dumped out PROMETHEUS. Feeling the ideas might be too similar, Del Toro shelved his project. I must admit, part of the clincher for me to watch this THE SHAPE OF WATER was the fact that I read several people hailing it as very Lovecraftian, so I needed to see how Del Toro channeled that dark energy. 

The movie is about Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins) who is a cleaning lady at a government facility. While on shift one day she discovers that they are experimenting on some curious aquatic creature from the depths of the Amazon. She bonds with the creature and decides to attempt to free the creature before it's scheduled for dissection. 

This movie is very dark and brooding. You have a bunch of dissociated characters who are thrown together into a dark, colorless, lifeless, and depressing setting. Life and color, a bright point seems to emerge as Elisa and the Creature become better acquainted. The movie is over two hours, but it builds suspense and drama in such a way that time passes by so quickly. 

If I had to describe this movie in one sentence, from the perspective of an HPL fan, I would say that if Lovecraft ever wrote a tale of romance it would've been THIS story. Well, mostly. It's dark and depressing. Sad. But ends in a hopeful way which HPL rarely ever did. 

I was very surprised with how much I loved this movie would recommend it in a general sense, not just for fans of Lovecraft, or science fiction, or fantasy, or horror, or any other cubbyhole niche.  

Next I want to get the book it was based on...

Find it on:

AMAZON

IMDB