Guillermo del Toro has a peculiar fetish when staying in hotels, but during pre-production on The Hobbit he found someone to match.
The fact that a director as well versed in horror as Guillermo del Toro loves ghost stories shouldn’t surprise anyone. The filmmaker is known for his frightening touch in films like The Devil’s Backboneand the supernatural always accompanied him, as in Pan’s Labyrinth or the recent Frankenstein.
In his personal life, the Mexican director also likes to experiment with scary stories, but one of the most chilling ones affected him when he was working in pre-production on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
Before Pedro Jackson took the reins, Guillermo del Toro would be in charge of directing the prequel to the lord of the ringsalthough several delays caused him to abandon the company.
But shortly before leaving the project, Guillermo del Toro worked on location scouting for the film in New Zealand, where he stayed in a hotel he will never forget.
Guillermo del Toro remains convinced he had a paranormal experience
On your recent visit to Jimmy Kimmel liveGuillermo del Toro recalled this anecdote that still keeps him awake from time to time, although not as much as when he was in Waitomo Caves Hotel:
“We were looking for locations for The Hobbit in an empty hotel in Waitomo, the Waitomo Hotel. In every hotel I go to, I know the haunted room. I always ask, ‘Can you tell me which room is haunted?’ Until then, nothing had happened.
I was watching Stringer Bell (The Wire) and suddenly I heard a complete murder in the middle of the room. The screams, the stabbings and the crying. I couldn’t sleep a wink. I put on headphones and stared at the computer all night. I didn’t want to turn around. There was a balcony and I thought, ‘What if I look and there’s something there?‘”
We will never know. Kimmel tried to suggest logical explanations for what happened, as did other guests, but Del Toro stressed that he was the only one to stay in the east wing of the hotel, in the middle of low season, while the rest stayed in the west wing.
Fortunately, the experience did not prevent Guilherme del Toro of horror cinema, and thanks to that we have films as Frankenstein on Netflix.
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