Guillermo del Toro wanted a haunted hotel room, but all he got was an "oppressive vibe"
Life is unstructured- no grand finale, del Toro muses
Photo: Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images for SBIFF (Getty)
If you were able to focus on anything but the DNC or J.D. Vance ordering donuts exactly like a Veep character yesterday, you might have been rewarded with another, spookier saga unfolding online. (Well, only slightly spookier. That Vance video is pretty harrowing.) “Whilst in Aberdeen, I am staying in an old 1800’s hotel,” legendary director Guillermo del Toro, who really knows how to hook his audience into a ghost story, posted on Twitter/X on Tuesday. “i am in the Most Haunted room of it- which was vacated this morning by one of our producers. Odd electrical and physical occurences scared her into leaving asap. Stay tuned- if anything happens I will report.”
And report he did. Over the next few days, the director sent a constant stream of similarly worded dispatches, documenting a story as riveting as any in the Cabinet Of Curiosities. “I always stay in ‘the most haunted rooms’ but onlybonce did I experience anything supernatural- the rest of the time: nothing,” he posted shortly after. “I have high hopes.”
At 1:31 a.m. yesterday, he gave another update:
UPDATE-. I can only say:. Nothingbhas happened yet, but the atmosphere in the room is opressive and I am not gonna spend much more time there. It may be suggestion, but at this point I kept it but am sleeping in another room- I need 6 hours of sleep to have a good shooting day-…
— Guillermo del Toro (@RealGDT) August 22, 2024
Fans and ghost hunters alike waited with bated breath to see what sort of entity was in the room with the Pan’s Labyrinth director that day. Was it a malevolent spirit brought forth by one too many cinematic explorations of Frankenstein, which the director was on-location to film? Was it a devious poltergeist scheming to replace his space bar with the “b” key? No one knew.
12 hours later:
6:28 Scotland. Finished the shooting day. Going into the room now- dinner at 8:00 Anything happens and I will update. the room has more than vibes there is something angry and teritorial there. A shred of rage. Room #4
— Guillermo del Toro (@RealGDT) August 22, 2024
This was followed by a few photos of del Toro trying to catch whatever the angry and territorial ghost in Room #4 was on camera, as any good ghost hunter would do. The director even tried to download an EVP (electronic voice phenomena) app on his phone, but in the end, it was all for naught. “No sounds or sights happened- but justan opressive vibe- Room #4 I shall return… Life is unstructured- no grand finale,” he posted late last night. If that isn’t a perfect summation of life on Earth right now, we don’t know what is. Maybe the real ghosts were the ready-made screenplays we gained along the way.