Guillermo del Toro reveals a Crimson Peak prop is hiding in plain sight in Frankenstein
Turns out Guillermo del Toro hid a Crimson Peak Easter egg in Frankenstein — the sort of sly nod everyone missed until now.
If you're the sort of person who spends half a film spotting props from a director's previous work, here's one for your list. Guillermo del Toro has gone on record about a little crossover detail hiding in his 2015 gothic horror take on Frankenstein. For anyone fond of catching the odd easter egg, this is a proper blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment.
Frankenstein features the actual butterfly jar that Lucille Sharpe keeps in Crimson Peak.
That snippet comes straight from Del Toro's own X (Twitter) feed, and if you've seen Crimson Peak you'll recall the jar — fits right in with the film's gothic hellscape and all those lovely symbolic props. It's not just a bit of set dressing, either. The butterfly motif in Crimson Peak is all about struggling for freedom, secrecy, and the director's general fondness for tragic weirdos. Now, he's planted it smack in the world of Frankenstein, which is Del Toro's love letter to Mary Shelley’s original — you know, the classic story of a scientist a bit too clever for his own good, cobbling together his own version of humanity with predictably disastrous results.
Why does this matter? Honestly, it's just a nice reminder that with Del Toro, what's sitting in the background is never just window-dressing. Fans might want to keep a sharper eye on the knick-knacks in his films. You never quite know what back-catalogue relic might show up next.
Pan's Labyrinth: Back to the Cinema
While we're talking Del Toro, Pan's Labyrinth has just had another moment in the spotlight. The fan-favourite adult fairytale resurfaced in cinemas on 9 October 2026, celebrating its twentieth anniversary — yes, it really has been that long. The film came out swinging with brand new 4K prints, and if you've ever wanted to see those dark woods and that unforgettable faun in 3D, now's your chance. This time around it was Cineverse and Fathom Entertainment handling the show, with Del Toro still very much hands-on for the remaster.
Pan's Labyrinth returned to cinemas in 2026 for a 20th anniversary re-release in 4K, with some screens offering HDR and 3D options.
If you've managed to miss it until now: set in Spain, 1944, the film centres on Ofelia, a young girl forced to move in with her pregnant mother and her charming new stepdad — as it happens, he's an absolutely monstrous army captain, played by Sergi López. What follows drops hard into the magical-realist deep end: secret labyrinths, fauns dishing out ritual tests, and war everywhere you look. Ivana Baquero leads the cast as Ofelia, with Maribel Verdú plus Doug Jones (yes, the man behind half of Del Toro's favourite monsters) on the call sheet.
Pan's Labyrinth was hands-down one of the most visually gobsmacking films of 2006, racking up six Oscar nominations and walking away with three — cinematography, art direction, and makeup (all richly deserved, frankly). For fans of Del Toro and his quietly obsessive approach to world-building, this anniversary edition is a reminder he's still one of the more interesting minds working in film. And apparently, he's not above a sneaky prop crossover, either.