Hit or Miss: Netflix's 'Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities'
Netflix
The trailer for Netflix's upcoming horror anthology series, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, opens with the Oscar winning director inviting viewers to imagine their minds “as a cabinet.” Del Toro elaborates, instructing viewers to envision that said cabinet contains their “darkest thoughts and deepest fears” before posing a single menacing question: what would happen if that cabinet-of-fear was opened to the world?
As the trailer continues, viewers are shown a jolting succession of quick, staticky clips featuring a series of jump scares and spooky images. Intercut title cards within these shots announce that “from the mind of Guillermo del Toro come 8 chilling stories.” These eight stories are each contained within their own episode which in turn are each directed by a different director. The settings and set-ups hinted at in the first look offered by the trailer include a couple in a haunted house, a weary sheriff at a shadowy morgue, and a mysterious storage unit stocked with occult paraphernalia to name a few. Other sequences feature a group of people getting stocked by an unseen car driver, a man glimpsing a demonic figure at the top of a staircase, and a nightmarish forest with devilish, otherworldly inhabitants.
Later on in the trailer, additional title cards dub the new series “the horror event of the season,” after which del Toro, speaking directly to his audience through the camera, says “welcome to my cabinet of horrors.” Judging by the plethora of ghouls, ghosts, and other monsters it features, Cabinet of Curiosities promises to deliver the same mixture of terrifying thrills, suspenseful hijinks, and strange oddities del Toro has come to master with films like Pan’s Labyrinth, Crimson Peak and the Academy Award winning The Shape of Water.
While del Toro’s involvement as writer and executive producer bode well for the show's success with both audiences and critics, its potential is heightened even more with the addition of eight individually impressive directors. Moreover, the anthology-style format of the show allows each episode to hone in on a new set of characters played by a unique cast. Although the episode list has not been completely confirmed, IMDb has the episode order as follows: “The Murmuring,” “The Autopsy,” “Lot 36,” “Pickman’s Model,” “The Viewing,” “Dreams in the Witch House,” “Graveyard Rats,” and “Some Other Animal’s Meat.”
The first episode, “The Murmuring,” is helmed by Australian writer-director Jennifer Kent (The Babadook, The Nightingale) and stars Andrew Lincoln (The Walking Dead, Love Actually) and Essie Davis (The Babadook, Assassin’s Creed) as a couple who moves into a haunted house. Beyond marking, Kent’s feature length directorial debut and her first collaboration with Davis, 2014’s indie horror darling, The Babadook, quickly amassed a cult following upon its release. It also inadvertently skyrocketed its now-iconic titular ghoulish villain into social media infamy as the popular subject of memes.
The second episode in the series, “The Autopsy,” is directed by David Prior (The Empty Man, AM1200), a producer and director better known for his work in documentary filmmaking. Prior’s previous credits include the docuseries Voir and a number of behind-the-scenes movies and videos chronicling feature film productions. His repertoire in the latter includes Capturing Captain Phillips, The Curious Birth of Benjamin Button, and the TV short documentary, It’s Never Just a Movie: Chris Rock and Top Five. The cast of “The Autopsy” features F. Murray Abraham (Moon Knight, Homeland), Luke Roberts (Ransom, Black Sails), and Glynn Turman (Super 8, John Dies at the End). The episode is set in what appears to be a morgue where the deceased don’t seem to stay dead.
Most famous for his work in cinematography, Guillermo Navarro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Godfather of Harlem) directs the series’ third episode, “Lot 36.” As an acclaimed director of photography, Navarro has previously worked with del Toro on 1993’s Cronos and 2006’s Pan’s Labyrinth. His other well-known horror-inspired credits include The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn- Part 1 & Part 2. “Lot 36” features Tim Blake Nelson (O Brother Where Art Thou, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs) as a man who gets access a mysterious storage unit and also stars Sebastian Roché (A Walk Among the Tombstones, The Man in the High Castle) and Elpidia Carrillo (Predator, Salvador).
The next episode, “Pickman’s Model,” comes from writer-director Keith Thomas (The Vigil, Firestarter) and draws its inspiration from the H.P. Lovecraft short story of the same name about a Bostonian painter who creates horrifying and lifelike images. The episode marks the second time that Lovecraft’s story has been adapted for an anthology series on the small screen, the first time being in 1971 for Night Gallery. “Pickman’s Model” stars Ben Barnes (Westworld, Shadow and Bone) and Crispin Glover (American Gods, Willard).
Italian Canadian screenwriter and film director Panos Cosmatos (Mandy, Beyond the Black Rainbow) directs episode five, “The Viewing,” about strangers participating in a dystopic watch party. Eric André (The Eric André Show, Bad Trip) leads the episode’s cast as a cynical participant along with a seductive Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service, The Mummy) and comic actress Charlyne Yi (This is 40, Jexi).
“Dreams in the Witch House,” the sixth episode, marks the second time the show uses an H.P Lovecraft work as source material. Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight, Red Riding Hood) directs the episode which follows a university student in Massachusetts who moves into a house previously occupied by an accused witch and begins experiencing spooky phenomena. The cast of this episode includes Rupert Grint (Sick Note, the Harry Potter franchise), Ismael Cruz Cordova (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Undoing), Geena Davis (Thelma & Louise, A League of Their Own), and Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I Hate Valentine’s Day).
The penultimate episode in the series, “Graveyard Rats,” also finds inspiration from literature, this time from Henry Kuttner penned short story of the same name. Director Vincenzo Natali (Cube, In the Tall Grass), also a successful producer, has forayed into television before, most notably on Westworld and Hannibal. The cast features Ish Morris (Suits, Supernatural), Alexander Eling (Another Life, Tiny Pretty Things), and Kevin Keppy (The Quest, Smile), who also appears in the show’s fifth installment, “The Viewing.”
The final episode, “Some Other Animal’s Meat,” is directed by Ana Lily Amirpour (Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon, The Bad Batch), a British-born Iranian-American director also known for her shorts, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and A Little Suicide. The episode is adapted from the psychological horror comic of the same name by Emily Carroll about a cosmetics saleswoman whose products begin to cause hideous reactions to her skin. The cast is led by Kate Micucci (The Big Bang Theory, The Little Hours) and Martin Starr (Silicon Valley, Life in Pieces).
Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities is executive produced by del Toro, J. Miles Dale (The Shape of Water, The Vow), and Gary Ungar (Gothika, The Strain). The eight-episode series will be released over a four-day period the week before Halloween, starting on Oct. 25 and ending on Oct. 28. “The Murmuring” and “The Autopsy” will premiere first while “Graveyard Rats” and “Some Other Animal’s Meat” will close out the season. Episodes will be available to stream on Netflix upon their release.
