In a scenario Guillermo del Toro described to ScreenAnarchy in 2013, you see your dad watching TV in the living room, then learn he died 3 years earlier. His other example begins when you open the front door and find that the street is gone, with black space beyond it. He uses the scenes to explain how fear can come from an unexpected presence or a familiar thing’s disappearance.
The Pale Man in *Pan’s Labyrinth* has eyes in his palms, leaving his face without them. A 2022 /Film article quotes del Toro asking whether the absence of eyes would make the character more expressive.
In *The Devil’s Backbone*, Santi’s ghost appears at an orphanage. Carlos is assigned the dead boy’s empty bed, a detail The Guardian described in 2025.
Del Toro returned to the idea of absence while discussing *Crimson Peak* with Collider in 2014. He described the absent father as present in the house in a “negative space.”
