Is ‘The Shape Of Water’ Connected To ‘The Creature From The Black Lagoon’?

 
The trailer for Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water has arrived, revealing a monster that looks very familiar.
In the film, co-written by Vanessa Taylor, an other-worldly fairy tale, is set against the backdrop of Cold War era America circa 1963. In the hidden high-security government laboratory where she works, lonely Elisa (Sally Hawkins) is trapped in a life of silence and isolation. Elisa’s life is changed forever when she and co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) discover a secret classified experiment.
I can’t help but wonder if it is actually a branch-off about the 1954 classic Creature from the Black Lagoon. Not only does the creature look like the iconic Universal monster, it is being described the same way. One example,  Michael Shannon’s character “Strickland”, while talking to another character about the creature states, “…the natives in the Amazon worshiped it like a god.” Sound familiar?
In the original Creature from the Black Lagoon, a team of scientists in the Amazon seek the remaining pieces of a skeleton, after a fossilized hand with webbed fingers are discovered. What the team doesn’t know is that they are about to encounter a live specimen.
Take a look at the images below and tell us what you think.