On one wall above the entryway are prints of Manhattan in troll language from Hellboy II: The Golden Army (“because,” he says, “the conceit was that the Troll Market was underneath the Brooklyn Bridge”). Taking center stage is a full-size figure of the demon Sammael from Hellboy, made for Guillermo by Spectral Motion.
Throughout Bleak House, other original props, concept art, storyboards, and preproduction maquettes from Guillermo’s films have been carefully selected and artfully scattered, but they do not dominate the collection. Were Guillermo to house everything designed and built for his films, he’d need a series of warehouses rivaling Charles Foster Kane’s. Instead, only those mementos from Guillermo’s films that hold a special fondness or significance for him are included among the wealth of glittering objects.
The Foyer at Bleak House.
A life-size sculpture of H.P. Lovecraft by Thomas Kuebler watches over the Horror Library at Bleak House.
Certain artists make regular appearances throughout the house. A perennial favorite is Basil Gogos, the famed cover artist for the magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland. His portrait of Guillermo is featured prominently in Bleak House’s entryway.
Dominating another wall is a large painting of Saint George killing the dragon that looks old but is actually a recent painting by Russian artist Viktor Safonkin. It holds special significance for Guillermo: “It’s one of my favorite images: (a) it speaks of impossible tasks, (b) it’s a great image because of the way the dragon is rendered.”
Guillermo adds, “I love dragons. They are my favorite fantasy creatures and are the most beautiful animals in all of mythology.” He cites a theory he likes, articulated by David E. Jones in An Instinct for Dragons, that proposes the dragon “is an imaginary amalgam we, as a species of primates, made from the predators we feared the most—the reptiles, the birds of prey, and the big cats.”
The Horror Library is also home to one of the original Cronos device props, clasped by a silicone hand used for some of the film’s special effects.
THE HORROR LIBRARY
To the right of the Foyer is one of Bleak House’s many libraries, where a full-size—and utterly convincing—figure of H. P. Lovecraft stands perusing a volume. Lovecraft is one of Guillermo’s most cherished icons, a spiritual godfather, and Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness is Guillermo’s most-longed-for, unmade film project.
The Lovecraft statue was sculpted by Thomas Kuebler. “I had it commissioned,” Guillermo says. “I approved every stage of the sculpt. People think his likeness is very easy; it’s actually very difficult. He has a few quirks, the fold by the mouth, the lantern jaw. They can be cartoonish.”
The Lovecraft figure stands watch over Guillermo’s beloved books on horror, including the first book he ever bought—an anthology edited by Forrest J Ackerman, which Guillermo purchased in 1971 when he was seven. The Horror Library is filled with classic stories by such outré and macabre authors as Arthur Machen, M. R. James, and Sheridan Le Fanu. “Everything that is in Spanish means that I bought it when I was very young,” Guillermo explains. Ravenous for knowledge, Guillermo began teaching himself English as soon as he could, so he could read more broadly: “I was very young. I was less than ten, and I was bilingual. I started with a dictionary and all the movies from America, which were subtitled, not dubbed.”
In the Horror Library, Prince Nuada’s sword from Hellboy II rests quietly a few feet away from the baby bug prop from Mimic. “And that’s one of the real Golden Army soldiers, life-size,” Guillermo says. “Next to it is the chopped-up head from Blade II.” Another familiar figure from Guillermo’s oeuvre stands out. “That’s the first concept maquette ever done of Hellboy,” Guillermo notes. “That was done by Matt Rose. And this is the Cronos device on one of the silicone hands we used in the movie.”
Guillermo avidly collects items from cherished movies and TV shows, including the Devil figure featured in Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. “That’s my favorite character in the whole movie,” Guillermo says. Scattered throughout the room are also visual touchstones from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Phantom of the Opera, Lost in Space, and Night Gallery. The replica figure of Baron Boris von Frankenstein, based on Boris Karloff, from the stop-motion-animated Mad Monster Party was made for him by the animation crew on Blade II.
This library also holds a miniature scene from Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Disney, in particular, has been a towering influence on Guillermo. But to really appreciate that, we need to stroll down the hallway and find a certain bookcase, which slides to reveal a secret room….
THE DOWNSTAIRS HALLWAY
The downstairs hallway of Bleak House is lined with a cornucopia of wonders, gathering together framed insects, cameos, nineteenth-century anatomical drawings, a fake mummified rabbit, weird objets d’art, and stunning artwork. These pieces include concept art for Sleeping Beauty by famed children’s illustrator Kay Nielsen, original work by science fiction and horror illustrator Michael Whelan, and illustrations by Charles Doyle, the father of Arthur Conan Doyle.
“These are my magic books,” Guillermo says, pointing to tomes on the art of illusion, prestidigitation, and misdirection from across several centuries. Then he gestures toward a row of busts depicting famed magicians: “And these are Thurston, Houdini, Chung Ling Soo.”
Favorite works of literature also line the shelves—volumes by Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, Jorge Luis Borges, and Edgar Allan Poe, among others.
Guillermo indicates a large framed insect. “That’s the bug I bought as a kid when I first visited New York. I always wanted to use it in a movie, and it ended up in Pan’s Labyrinth.”
Nearby are other touchstones of Guillermo’s life. “This is my grandmother’s cameo, which I’ve used as a prop in a couple of movies, and which I want to use again in Crimson Peak. And this is the first model kit I painted as a kid, Pirates of the Caribbean.”
Wall sculpture by T. Gore.
THE HAUNTED MANSION ROOM
“I first went to Disneyland when I was three years old,” Guillermo recalls. “It was life-changing for me. My mind became what it is. I’m a big Disney fan. I believe the man changed the way we tell stories. He was doing transmedia before anybody talked about transmedia.”
The Haunted Mansion Room—also called the Fairy Tales and Folk Tales Library—replicates many elements from Disney’s unique attraction, including the wallpaper from the mansion’s foyer by Bradbury and Bradbury, gargoyle sconces, and Marc Davis’s original acrylic painting of Medusa. Also notable is the life-size figure of the Hatbox Ghost, a ghost no longer seen on the ride. “It was on the Haunted Mansion for only a few days, then they took it down,” Guillermo relates. “The legend was that it was too scary. The reality is, it wasn’t working.”
An example of one of the many displays at Bleak House, this one in the Haunted Mansion Room and home to the original sculpt of Santi from The Devil’s Backbone.