Just the explanation for the Shoggoth creatures in GDT's next film have us scratching our heads. We have no idea how he will execute this.
"Let's say that creature A turns into creature A-B, then turns into creature B, then turns into creature B-C. And by the time it lands on a guy it's creature E." He discussed one grisly Shoggoth transformation: "It's like when you grab a sock and you pull it inside out. From his mouth, he extrudes himself."
And that's not all; the director goes into great detail about an "abandoned coral reef" world he's building for the monsters in which the Old Ones will "torpedo through tubes" to get from one area to another.
"A coral reef is a shitload of skeletons fused together, right? All the technology those creatures have, all their technology is organic. You and I use metals, plastics. These creatures don't have weapons or chisels. They create other creatures as tools."
In the early stages GDT referred to the The Old Ones as "cucumbers with wings," but later on the author got a much better look at the concept designs for the beasts which will open up like a "Swiss Army Knife" revealing wings and tentacles.
The oceanic motif was particularly evident in the design of the Old Ones. Del Toro's enthusiasm for the lionfish had endured, and the aliens' wings echoed their flamboyant fins. In motion, he explained, the Old Ones would appear buoyant-"unbound by gravity." As the camera tracked them caroming around the city, the viewer would feel disoriented, like a panicked scuba diver inside a cave.
But bringing to life H.P. Lovecraft's Shoggoth is much more complicated.
Since the Shoggoths could mutate into anything, there was no fixed silhouette, but many would feature a "protoplasmic bowl," an abdomen-like area from which new forms could sprout. One maquette was a disorienting twist on classic Lovecraftian form. It looked like a giant octopus head with tentacles jutting from the top and the bottom-a fearful symmetry. "That's my belly in the middle," del Toro joked. In another maquette, the Shoggoth had sprouted two heads, each extending from brontosaurus-like necks. Their skulls could be smashed together to destroy victims. "The idea is to create craniums that function as jaws," he said. The Shoggoths would often create ghastly parodies of human forms; as they pursued the humans, they would imitate them, imperfectly.
