This year’s Oscar nominations ended up being a boon to genre movies, which seem to always struggle with Academy voters.
Not least of them is Guillermo del Toro’s field-leading fairytale “The Shape of Water.” A beautifully-crafted distant cousin to del Toro’s previous Oscar success story, “Pan’s Labyrinth,” the film scooped up 13 nominations, including best picture, best director, best actress, best supporting actor, and best supporting actress.
Naturally, it also performed beautifully throughout the craft categories.“I’ve always seen monsters as very spiritual figures for me, very metaphorical,” del Toro said on a recent episode of Variety‘s “Playback” podcast. “They sort of embody concepts for me. … [But] I don’t know what I do. People say, ‘You’re a horror filmmaker, fantasy’ — no, I love fables.”
Jordan Peele’s horror-satire “Get Out” became the first February release to receive a best picture nomination since another horror film, Jonathan Demme’s “The Silence of the Lambs,” 26 years ago. It was also the first such film to be nominated in the top category since “Black Swan” in 2010.
“It felt like the comedy education I got the last decade or so worked perfectly in this film,” Peele said on another episode of “Playback” upon the film’s release. “I feel both horror and laughter are ways we face our demons, ways we deal with our fears of death. It’s about tension, tension, tension, then release, with a certain pinpoint precision. In a way that’s a metaphor for…
The post Genre Movies Get Their Moment in the Oscar Spotlight appeared first on FeedBox.