<Li> Grant Piro, Todd Macdonald, Angus Smallwood, Dylan Young and Guillermo del Toro as The Creature Voices </Li> <P> Del Toro chose Troy Nixey to direct the film after seeing Nixey's short film Latchkey's Lament . For the design of the creatures in the film, Nixey drew inspiration from pictures of mole rats . </P> <P> Del Toro has attributed the idea of giving the creatures in the film a fairy origin to the work of the writer Arthur Machen, saying in an interview: "I love the Welsh author Arthur Machen and his idea that fairy lore comes from a dark place, that it's derived from little, pre-human creatures who are really, really nasty vermin but are magical in a way, living as they do for hundreds of years . His books are what compelled me to do this ." Machen's stories are specifically mentioned in the film by the librarian character . Del Toro is a long - standing admirer of Machen and said his work was also an influence on El Laberinto Del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth) and Hellboy II: The Golden Army both of which also feature fairy creatures . The name of "Emerson Blackwood", the character who built the mansion in the film, is a tribute to Algernon Blackwood, another writer of supernatural horror stories . </P> <P> This picture, which was developed with Miramax in the wake of the division's closure and sale, was released by FilmDistrict, and was rated R despite filmmaker ambitions to the contrary . "We originally thought we could shoot it as PG - 13 without compromising the scares," Del Toro said . "And then the MPAA came back and gave us a badge of honor . They gave us an R for' Violence and Terror .' We asked them if there was anything we could do, and they said,' Why ruin a perfectly scary movie?"' </P>

Don't be afraid of the dark creatures origin