Guillermo del Toro says his grandmother used to physically torture him for the good of his soul

Guillermo del Toro was recently a guest on Visitations, the podcast hosted by Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah. During the two-part interview, del Toro briefly discussed his movies, but mostly focused on his upbringing, which reads like a Series of Unfortunate Events. Among the anecdotes:

-He used to be skinny but put on weight to defend himself from bullies, including one who threatened to throw him over a railing.
-His father was paranoid of being robbed, and would wake del Toro and his young brother in the middle of the night, telling them to watch for invaders.
-After his uncle died and del Toro inherited his room, the uncle haunted him.

But most disturbing of all was the abuse inflicted by his "grandmother." Del Toro's mother was frequently absent, and thus his maternal great aunt served as his primary caretaker. She was "very Catholic" and would tell del Toro that upon his death he literally would burn in hell for hundreds of years, if not longer. She believed mortifying the flesh was important as atonement. Accordingly, del Toro explained, "she used to put upside [down] bottle caps on my shoes for my feet to bleed. And I was a child, a little child. And she would say this would amortize your time in purgatory. So you get a sense of spiritual danger at all times."

During the interview, Del Toro also reflected on his brother's advice about needing to accept their father despite his flaws: "He's not the flu. He's not going to get better."

You can listen to the entire interview, and many more in the series here.