Bloody Perfect: Forbidden Fruit
Isaura Barbé-Brown brings us the next post in her monthly column, Bloody Perfect.
Some would argue that Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) is not a horror film, but those people must enjoy being wrong. Guillermo del Toro is the king of monsters, and this film is full of them.
It is set in 1944 during the Falangist movement in Spain. Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), a little girl fascinated by fairy-tales, arrives with her pregnant mother to her new stepfather’s house. Her new stepfather, Captain Vidal (Sergi López), is a cold, violent and utterly ruthless man. Her mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) is having a difficult pregnancy and spends a lot of her time on bed rest. The captain’s housekeeper, Mercedes (Maribel Verdú), who does her best to look out for Ofelia, is also heavily involved in the rebellion against the fascism of the day, leaving Ofelia to mostly fend for herself.
Ofelia’s new home is filled with the threat of violence, and suffering, be it emotional or physical, is always nearby. It’s no surprise then that she escapes into a world of fantasy and fairy-tale where pain and fear are only milestones on the way to great reward. She meets a fairy and follows it to the centre of an overgrown labyrinth, where a faun (Doug Jones) has been waiting for her. He tells her of her true identity; she is Princess Moanna of the underworld, and she can return to her rightful place as soon as she completes three tasks to prove her worthiness. For the first task she dutifully retrieves a key from the stomach of a giant toad, following every instruction she’s been given. But it is Ofelia’s second task where my favourite scene begins.
Using magic chalk, Ofelia must draw a door that leads to the lair of a monster who sits idle at a table where a great feast is spread. She must use the key to find a golden dagger and then return before the sand runs out of an hourglass. The Faun lends her his fairy helpers to assist her, but most importantly, he tells her not to eat a single thing from the feast table. A simple instruction, and yet…
In the lair, past the magic chalk door, at the head of the table, sits The Pale Man (Doug Jones again). He is skeletal with flesh and skin hanging loosely from his bones. He has no eyes, but a face made only of two nostrils and a red blistered lips on a sagging mouth filled with tiny, discoloured teeth. His hands rest palm down on the table and his long fingers end in black claws. On a plate in front of him sit two eyeballs. On the walls are paintings of The Pale Man killing and eating children. In a corner, there is a pile of discarded children’s shoes. I am scaring myself just writing this, Ofelia on the other hand is decidedly UNFAZED. She finds the dagger and the fairies urge her to leave right away, but instead she EATS A FUCKING GRAPE. I love a grape as much as the next person but there is not a grape in the world tantalising enough for this to have been a good decision, and if you’re going to risk your life for a snack, grab a turkey leg or something for the love of God!
What follows is the clicking of bones as The Pale Man jerks to life and places the eyeballs from the plate into the holes in his palms. The fairies try to distract him but are snatched out of the air and eaten. Ofelia, with her back to all of this, CONTINUES TO EAT FUCKING GRAPES. When she stops eating for five goddam seconds, she realises she’s in grave danger, but her time is already running out and she must draw a second door, as she balances precariously on the back of a chair while the creature inches closer. I cannot really explain the halting, crooked, stumbling walk of The Pale Man with his outstretched arms and splayed, all-seeing hands, that is somehow slow but too fast at the same time, but the first time I saw it, I nearly crawled out of my mortal coil and my cinema seat.
Horror in this film mostly comes from the scenes depicting real violence (namely the face smashing scene and the mouth cutting scene) which are shown in full, unflinching shots and Captain Vidal is very much a monster in his own right. But The Pale Man is something plucked straight from a nightmare. He’s the thing we are scared is lurking in the closet or under the bed at night. He eats children and fairies and unfairly targets the peckish… What could be worse?
We all love a rule breaker, but Ofelia picks the absolute worst time to follow the beat of her own drum and the rumbling of her own stomach. A nice grape is not worth the death of several fairies, the lair of The Pale Man is not the place to get one of your five a day. To quote my mother, there is food at home.
Isaura Barbé-Brown is a Hackney born and based actress. She studied at AADA in New York and BADA in Oxford. She has written for The BFI, Black Ballad UK as well as The Final Girls/Bloody Women and been a guest on The Final Girls podcast and the Evolution of Horror podcast. She has done talks at the BFI for their Squad Goals event and during their Love season with the Bechdel Test Fest on race in romantic films. Isaura has also been on panels for BFI Future Film, The Watersprite Film Festival and The Norwich Film Festival. Her acting work covers theatre, film, tv and voiceover. She has also written for short film, TV and theatre as well as short stories and poetry. You can find Isaura on Twitter and Instagram.
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