Less than a week leading up to Halloween, the dark fantasy wizard Guillermo del Toro teamed up with Netflix to celebrate this year's spooky season by bringing us four nights of a horror anthology, Guillermo Del Toro's Cabinet Of Curiosities. The series features eight unique horror stories, co-written by del Toro, who has curated a collection of unprecedented and genre defining tales, and handpicked various filmmakers to be the director of the set episode. Each is different from the next in terms of storytelling and levels of scariness.
Cabinet Of Curiosities is basically del Toro's version of The Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The Oscar-winning director casts himself as the show's host, slowly walking his way around a vintage wooden cabinet, opening the drawers and taking out items and figurines that represent each of the episodes. The series allows other storytellers and filmmakers the opportunity to share their passion for horrifying ghouls, creatures, monsters and all things that lurk in the dark. Some episodes are scarier than others, which depends on what kind of story scares you more -- visitors from outer space, creatures living underground, or more classical depictions of a monster. And here are some from the first night's episodes.
Lot 36 is directed by Guillermo Navarro and stars Tim Blake Nelson as Nick Appleton, an extremely gruff and rude person who makes a living buying old storage units at auction and reselling the stuff inside. One day he makes a bid for the titular Lot 36, that was kept by an isolated old man since World War II. Inside the unit, Nick finds valuable yet sinister items that may have been better off unfound. While not as scary as other episodes, Lot 36 does a great job as a mystery-solving kind of story. The patiently told tale pulls the viewer in as Nick grows more and more curious about his discovery before bringing us to the climax of the supernatural story.
The stories may be different but the main concept in the Graveyard Rats episode is similar to Lot 36. Graveyard Rats is about a grave robber in the 1800s who must contend with some nasty rodents in order to get his bounty from a wealthy, newly dead, person. David Hewlett plays the main character Masson, who makes a living robbing graveyards. But lately Masson has been coming up short. He believes there's something underground stealing bodies from the graves, leaving empty coffins.
If you have a phobia for rats or a claustrophobic atmosphere, perhaps avoid this episode, which is intensely scary and visually disturbing. There are some wonderful practical effects and creatures that are visceral, and indeed very disgusting, but they also work to make for some incredibly freaky visuals that are balanced by a subtly comedic dialogue, making an entertaining watch.
Each episode runs about an hour long, which I think is a wise idea, because the longer stories make it feel less like a short film. The strategy allows characters to descend into darkness, and for audiences to be more invested in the stories.
Cabinet Of Curiosities gets off to a good start, which hopefully is a harbinger of things to come. Future episodes include The Murmuring, directed by Jennifer Kent, who helmed the popular The Babadook, and The Autopsy, a sci-fi offering derivative of The X-Files. This is a great show for horror fans, full of wickedly twisted mysteries and perfect for Halloween.
- Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet Of Curiosities (first two episodes)
- Starring Tim Blake Nelson, F. Murray Abraham, Dan Stevens, Rupert Grint
- Created by Guillermo del Toro
- Now streaming on Netflix
