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Keith Thompson's creepy mural serves as cover art for Blackwood's Guide to Dangerous Fairies, the printed prequel to horror film Don't Be Afraid of the Dark.

To set the stage for new horror movie Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Guillermo Del Toro wrote a graphic novel that doubles as an international field guide to supernatural beasties.

Like previous Del Toro movies Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark revels in supernatural beasts. Toothbreakers, ice monsters and homicidal trees crowd the pages of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark: Blackwood’s Guide to Dangerous Fairies. The printed prequel to the movie, which opens Friday, compiles fictional journal entries by British biologist Emerson Blackwood, who goes off the rails after coming across the carcass of a peculiar creature.

In the book, Blackwood describes his first discovery as follows:

“Perhaps 12 inches high, the creature had been arranged so the bones of its arms were raised and hooked in a strange, death pantomime of a praying mantis. The thing had a hunched back with a prominent spine and thick, voluminous ribs so that it seemed to have more bone mass than any creature its size would ever need. The front teeth more closely resembled those of the shark but the back teeth on both sides were large and blunt, made for gnawing and crunching. A shiver went through me.”

Blackwood’s investigation leads to the U.S., where he buys a Rhode Island mansion. A century later, the movie begins when a little girl (played by Bailee Madison) triggers evil forces while visiting her father and his girlfriend in the creaky house formerly owned by Blackwood.

Del Toro is co-writer and producer of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. The remake of a 1973 TV movie stars Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes. It received an R rating, which Del Toro called a “badge of honor.”

The director likes to prep his films by illustrating his unearthly ideas in massive sketchbooks. For the $25 hardcover Dangerous Fairies, which he co-wrote with Christopher Golden, Del Toro recruited Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark director and co-writer Troy Nixey to create the old-fashioned black-and-white drawings. Take a tour of the evil fairy world, and get acquainted with its phantasmagorical critters, in the gallery above.

All illustrations: Troy Nixey, courtesy Miramax