Nightmare Alley Is A Prequel To The Shape Of Water Theory Explained

Nightmare Alley Is A Prequel To The Shape Of Water Theory Explained

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Could Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley be a prequel to his The Shape of Water? It’s not an entirely implausible theory and here’s why.

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Nightmare Alley Is A Prequel To The Shape Of Water Theory Explained

WARNING: Potential spoilers for Nightmare Alley below.

The first trailer for Nightmare Alley has dropped and what it shows sets up a plausible theory that it’s a prequel to The Shape of Water. The upcoming Guillermo del Toro movie is a new adaptation of the novel by William Lindsay Gresham, which was previously adapted as a movie in 1947. Thus far, Guillermo del Toro’s next movie has largely flown under the radar despite being one of the more exciting projects in production, thanks in part to del Toro’s involvement and its all-star ensemble cast, which includes Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Willem Dafoe, Mary Steenburgen, Toni Collette, Ron Perlman, Paul Anderson, Holt McCallany, David Strathairn, Tim Blake Nelson, Jim Beaver, Richard Jenkins, and Clifton Collins Jr.

The psychological film noir thriller revolves around Cooper’s Stanton “Stan” Carlisle, an ambitious carny with the ability to manipulate people through a combination of sleight of hand, memorization of verbal cues, and cold reading the carnival’s guests. His con and audience grow bigger and he seeks the help of Blanchett’s Lilith Ritter. Stan quickly realizes Ritter is even more manipulative and dangerous than he is, however, and Stan’s lies and deceit soon begin to spiral as Lilith gains control over the increasingly stressed-out Stan.

It may seem like an interesting departure for Guillermo del Toro in ways, but the way the trailer is cut creates a number of ties to del Toro’s previous Best Picture-winning work The Shape of Water. Here’s the theory that Nightmare Alley is a prequel to The Shape of Water explained.

Its Time Period Connects To That Of The Shape Of Water

Nightmare Alley Is A Prequel To The Shape Of Water Theory Explained

Rather than update the time period of Nightmare Alley to a modern setting, Guillermo del Toro chose to honor the original novel by keeping the time period of the mid-1940s. The story of the movie unfold over a relatively short period of time – there are no massive time jumps and nor does the story cover years. It’s not clear exactly what year del Toro’s adaptation will be set in, but it can be assumed it’s the same year as the novel itself: 1946. The Shape of Water is set somewhat later in 1962, putting about 16 years between each movie, which seems like a considerable span of time on paper but really isn’t when one considers how the events of the 1940s, specifically World War II, directly influenced the 1950s and early 60s. So already, Nightmare Alley is positioned at the right time to be a prequel to The Shape of Water.

Nightmare Alley’s Narrative Themes Also Line Up

Nightmare Alley Is A Prequel To The Shape Of Water Theory Explained

However, their thematic throughlines show an evolution that lines up with history, as well. Nightmare Alley, at least Gresham’s novel and the original movie, is a dark, existential drama and that’s supported thematically. Stan Carlisle is a tragic figure, one left utterly broken and bereft by the end of the novel. The things his story suggests are cynical: The only person who really gets ahead in life is the one who can pull the best con; there is no redemption, only retribution; everyone’s a grifter, some are just deadlier than others, etc. And, unlike most other noir stories of the era, the protagonist of Nightmare Alley isn’t a decent man who happens to get pulled into some sordid affair, but a spider who simply has the misfortune of running into a snake. It’s a reflection of a world just coming off of World War II, a war that exposed the Nazis’ horrific concentration camps to the world. But it was also a time in which ordinary men found themselves killing others and committing their own atrocities in the name of war, many sinking lower than they ever thought possible.

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The Shape of Water, set in 1962, is a dark romantic fantasy that ends on a much more hopeful note than Nightmare Alley. It certainly deals with the darkness of men–Michael Shannon’s Col. Richard Strickland, in particular, has a disturbing well of darkness. But it’s not the shadow of World War II that lingers over the movie, but the Cold War, which began right where Nightmare Alley’s era leaves off in 1947. There are touches of the Cold War era’s paranoia throughout the film; the very nature of a secret government lab suggests espionage and backdoor political maneuverings. But The Shape of Water also reflects the more optimistic feeling of the world in the 1950s and early 60s, especially America, which found itself booming economically and prospering in the two decades between World War II and the Vietnam War. Thus, the themes of Nightmare Alley blend right into the themes of The Shape of Water in a natural evolution.

The Nightmare Alley Trailer Voiceover Is Important

Nightmare Alley Is A Prequel To The Shape Of Water Theory Explained

“Step right up and behold one of the unexplained mysteries of the universe! Is he man or beast?” barks the voiceover of Willem Dafoe’s carny Clem Hoately over the Nightmare Alley trailer. “This creature has been examined by the foremost scientists and pronounced unequivocally a man. I am prepared to offer you folks one last chance to witness this supreme oddity! Where did it come from?” The repetition of Clem asking, “Is it a beast or is it a man?” is the central question of the trailer, a phrase repeated multiple times, and it’s a multilayered piece of dialogue.

Specifically, what or who Willem Dafoe’s character is referring to is the carnival’s “geek.” Today, the word is used synonymously with “nerd,” but in the early half of last century, it was most often used to refer to carnival sideshow freaks. Indeed, it was William Lindsay Gresham’s novel that popularized the term “geek” in that context. Carnival geeks were the freaks and wild men of the show, most often depicted as biting the heads off chickens and drinking their blood, or snakes. Geeks were depicted as freaks of nature, aberrations that were human, but also animalistic.

However, there’s another symbolic meaning to Dafoe’s words. In the trailer, the voiceover is layered over key scenes of Bradley Cooper’s Stan Carlisle; clearly, the dialogue is meant to suggest that Stan has fallen so far from grace that he’s no longer fully human. Is he still a man or have his acts made him less than human? How did he get that way? And if he is a man, what does it say about the other people around him?

The Voiceover Could Also Refer To Shape Of Water’s Amphibian Man

Nightmare Alley Is A Prequel To The Shape Of Water Theory Explained

But yet a third reading of it might immediately put someone in mind of The Shape of Water’s Amphibian Man, played by the actor Doug Jones. One of the central conflicts of that movie was the exact question being posed in Nightmare Alley: Is the Amphibian Man a beast or a man? Shannon’s Col. Strickland sees the creature they had captured as no more than a potential asset and a dumb creature to be experimented on, tortured, and then killed when he’s no longer of use to the U.S. government. Sally Hawkins’ Elisa, however, befriends the creature and soon learns he’s as intelligent as any human, with a human’s critical thinking skills and intelligence, full range of emotions, ability to communicate, and sexual desires.

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Nightmare Alley and The Shape of Water line right up thematically, but it’s also possible they could in a literal sense. The Shape of Water reveals that the Amphibian Man was captured in Brazil and taken from the Amazon River. He’s captured shortly before the events of the movie, but it’s not clear exactly how much time there is between his capture and the start of the movie or everything that befell him before his capture. Getting flexible with probability, it’s entirely possible that Willem Dafoe’s carny is speaking not of a carnival geek in his Nightmare Alley voiceover, but of another creature entirely and the Amphibian Man certainly fits that criteria being a beast who is a man. It’s also possible that it’s not the exact Amphibian Man in The Shape of Water, but another of his kind that has been captured – after all, Shape of Water implies that Elisa was born a fish creature like Amphibian Man. Early 20th-century carnival sideshows were well known for capturing and buying all manner of strange creatures to show to the paying public. Some were real animals that were simply foreign to audiences and others were fake, but the Amphibian Man would fit right in as a carnival freakshow oddity.

The Visual Style, Color Palette, and Music Also Tie Them Together

There are more ties between Nightmare Alley and The Shape of Water than narrative ones. Despite the former being a noir action-thriller and the latter being a dark romantic fantasy heist, their visuals are remarkably similar. Most movies today employ a blue-and-orange color palette, and while del Toro’s two movies certainly do touch upon that visually, both of them lean far more heavily into the turquoise and green spectrum than most. Likewise, both movies play with the concepts of light and shadow, with heavy contrast between the two. Both movies find parts of their stories occurring in stark institutional settings, bare lightbulbs casting heavy shadows over planes of characters’ faces and off bland concrete walls.

Both have a similar musical sound, as well. The opening of the Nightmare Alley trailer includes the chiming strains of music that audiences immediately associate with a music box or stepping into a fantasy world. The same instrumentals are used throughout The Shape of Water, and also showcased in the movie’s trailer. For two movies that are supposedly completely different in genre, the Nightmare Alley trailer is working hard to connect them in multiple ways and there could be a deeper reason for that beyond branding. If Nightmare Alley isn’t a direct prequel to The Shape of Water, it sure appears to function as a spiritual predecessor, making a unique duology in Guillermo del Toro’s work.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/nightmare-alley-shape-water-prequel-theory-explained/

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