Master of horror's underground success

A self-described 'systematic, careful collector of fairy tales', ever since his Catholic-raised upbringing in Guadalajara, Del Toro compares the film to Hans Christian Andersen's classic tale The Little Match Girl, which concludes with the heroine dying on the street. 'The context of that is real poverty, real hunger and real cold - and it's as real as the context of Pan's Labyrinth,' he says.

With the monsters of the film - notably the surreal Pale Man, whose eyeballs are located like stigmata in the palms of his hands - evidently representing fascism, it prompts one to wonder why Del Toro is so fascinated with this period of Spain's history.

'Those are formative years, very important years, for what is the modern world,' he argues. 'What I lived through was the echo of these years. Mexican culture was deeply affected by the immigration of Republican intellectuals: writers, actors, set designers, critics and film historians.

'All these people came from Spain, seeking refuge in Mexico, and they shaped Mexican culture. Mexico was open to them, which was a very rare stance.'

From the outside, it seems that Del Toro has made his most personal film to date, but he claims otherwise. 'To me, Hellboy is a personal film but the format it was born in was essentially a commercial film.

'It would be absolute madness for me to try to break that format, as the movie would not connect to that particular audience.' Despite Del Toro's willingness to play the studio game at such times, he remains very much his own man. Since his 1993 debut,

Cronos, Del Toro has successfully alternated between Hollywood and arthouse. It's a remarkable feat, particularly as he claims his only negative studio experience was on Mimic, his 1997 film about giant cockroaches in New York.

Since then, while true Del Toro fans no doubt relish his more idiosyncratic films, his Hollywood work still boasts his unique sensibilities - and he says both inform the other. True to form, he is currently in pre-production on Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, set to continue the adventures of the Naziraised demon played by Ron Perlman. While he claims he was satisfied with its predecessor, Del Toro believes this sequel will be vastly different.

'It's ultimately the idea of the clash between fantasy and reality, and how no matter what evils you face in the fantasy world, the real world evils are far more pernicious,' he says. 'It will have more to do with Pan's Labyrinth than people will expect.'

Pan's Labyrinth (15) opens on Friday