Guillermo Del Toro's The Cabinet of Curiosities (2022)

Demons! Giant rats! Cannibalism! Aliens! Ghosts! Welcome to our review of Guillermo Del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities. Part of this was already tweeted, but we decided to write a whole blog post. They're the same type of mini reviews we did for Robert E Howard's Solomon Kane stories and School Tales: The Series. Warning: some spoilers.

Each episode begins with an introduction by Del Toro, who picks a related item from the titular cabinet. The opening credits are wonderfully macabre and the mechanical style, with moving panels and wheels, reminded us of Hellboy II: The Golden Army. It also fits the series' tone: sinister rather than outright scary.

DAY 1

1.LOT 36

Nick Appleton has debts, a chip on his shoulder, and no problem sharing his right wing views with the people around him, including Eddie, who gives him tips about promising abandoned storage units in exchange for a cut of the profits. This time, it's lot 36. Its recently deceased owner made regular visits to put stuff in, but never took anything out. This could be the break Nick needs, but will he survive to enjoy it?

We could've done without the political commentary and Amelia, the owner of a lot Nick had previously bought, didn’t add much. However, once Nick took the séance table to Agatha for an appraisal, things got good. We're suckers for occult Nazi stuff and it reminded us of the first Hellboy, which is always a good thing. This looked great and the hidden room was creepy. We wished the episode had spent more time exploring this part. Amelia's revenge was extreme and made us lose sympathy for the character. This was good, but it could've been better.

2.THE GRAVEYARD RATS

Masson is a graveyard caretaker/grave robber who's been competing with some very aggressive rats for loot. When he becomes aware of a promising grave, he refuses to let the rats win, no matter how deep their tunnels and the horrors that hide beneath the earth...

Masson was a fun lead and this episode was filled with dark humour. The morgue scene seemed unnecessarily gross, though. The long chase through the tunnels was claustrophobic. We liked the giant rat, but it wasn't nearly as determined as the smaller ones. The temple didn't add much other than throwing a Cthulhu reference and some zombie action into the mix. An inclusion probably explained by the fact that Henry Kuttner, the author of the story this was based on, was part of Lovecraft’s circle. The ending was great (and also proved our point about the smaller rats).

DAY 2

3.THE AUTOPSY

After several miners die in an explosion, the insurance company asks for an autopsy to determine if they must really pay the grieving families. As the pathologist, Carl, is given more information about the case by the sheriff, Nate, who's also an old friend, it becomes clear the situation isn't as simple as it seems and may be connected to some mysterious disappearances...

This episode suffered from too much exposition. There was no need for all the flashbacks, which made the whole thing too obvious. Either make this a linear story, or limit the information share. It did get good once the titular autopsy started and that really should’ve been the main focus. That was one psychotic alien. While we liked Carl's solution to the problem, we could've done without the ocular violence. The slithering effects were creepy good.

4.THE OUTSIDE

Awkward amateur taxidermist Stacey is tired of being the odd one out among her beautiful coworkers at the bank. So, when a special lotion promises to turn her into everything she's ever wanted, she ignores the pleas of her doting husband, Keith, and the pain caused by the treatment. However, the changes aren't only on the outside...

This bloody satire was the most original of the bunch. It was darkly funny and didn't go where we expected it to go. The Secret Santa lotion applying scene was an orgy of narcissism. In a way, it was fitting that Stacey was so passionate about taxidermy as she did to herself what she did to the animals: kill a living thing, empty it, and mount it as a beautiful, dead copy of the original. We thought that she might be hallucinating the conversations with the TV because of some weird side effects of the lotion, and that in the end we were going to find out it was all in her head. Instead, the story just kept getting more bonkers. And that's a compliment.

DAY 3

5.PICKMAN'S MODEL

During his time as an Art student at Miskatonic University, Will Thurber meets Richard Pickman, a fellow painter whose disturbing work is unlike anything he's ever seen. Years later, they meet again and Pickman's paintings have become even worse. But are they really just the work of his imagination?

It's Lovecraft Day! Unfortunately, both episodes fail as adaptations. Yes, Pickman's Model is pretty short, but this added too much and most of it wasn't good, apart from the extended backstory for Pickman's witch ancestor. And even that was overused. It also took a lot, like the tunnels, the Boston history... and the ghouls. Yes, really. The adaptation of the introduction of Richard Pickman, the future king of the Dreamlands' ghouls, chose to remove the canine-like corpse eaters. We thought we were going to get the ghoul changeling bit when Thurber had the dream with Rebecca's father and then, later, when Pickman told him his son reminded him of himself. There was a very brief reference to it with one of the paintings, which was never shown in full, and that will look like just one more scary image to anyone not familiar with the source material.

Instead of the ghouls, there was Miskatonic University and the usual Mythos cultists, which don't show up in the original story. What's featured there is Thurber's love of Pickman's creepy art, including something called Ghoul Feeding, which is never described. He even mocks the more traditional critics, like Minot, who was shown here as a supporter of Pickman's work. It's only when he sees the ghoul changeling paintings that he gets truly creeped out and then he loses it when he sees the picture of the titular model. Here, he freaked out nearly from the start. And since we're talking characters, Pickman did not match our mental image. Lovecraft’s Pickman is the enfant terrible of the art world, who then begins to degenerate into... something. We expected him to have a magnetic personality. This Pickman was a charisma void, who started as a shy, older art student weirdo and evolved into an arrogant, menacing, acclaimed painter weirdo desperate for Thurber's approval. There was no physical change and his monotonic delivery of the unsettling dialogue taken straight from the original story about the hungry 'rats', just ruined it. The repeated line about family portraits that Del Toro had used to introduce the episode just fell flat.

This really couldn't handle Lovecraft’s passive narrator. We get how that might be a problem, but the confrontation between Thurber and Pickman in the basement was OTT and ridiculous. The ending wasn't bad, but it was from a completely different story than the one Lovecraft originally wrote. And if the goal was to show a work of fiction that infects whoever sees it with madness and also opens a door to somewhere else, it would’ve made more sense to adapt one of Robert W Chambers's The King in Yellow stories.

6.DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE

Ever since his twin sister, Epperley, died when they were children, Walter has been looking for a way to reach her. He joined the Spiritualist Society and travels the country investigating supernatural phenomena. After performing a Navajo ritual involving a drug called Liquid Gold, he finally gets to see Epperley. Walter's friend, Frank, is sceptical, but he's convinced he found what he'd been looking for. When he reads about Salem witch Keziah Mason, who claimed to have found a key to unlock the door to other worlds, he rents a room at her old house...

No, this has nothing to do with the original story. It only borrowed some names. Gone are the non-Euclidean geometry, the alien worlds, Nyarlathotep, and the attempt to take Walter to meet Azathoth. Instead, there was the Beyond, and Keziah Mason, who had mysteriously disappeared from her cell in the original tale, was turned into an angry wooden ghost trying to use Walter and Epperley to come back to life. Brown Jenkins was never explained. Worse, the importance of the titular house was greatly diminished - Walter's 'dreams' weren't even connected to it but to the drug given to him by a couple of random Native Americans. No doubt, some will praise the diverse cast in an (alleged) adaptation of a story written by a racist, even though this had nothing to do with what Lovecraft actually wrote and was centred on a white character.

Even taken on its own (few) merits, this episode wasn't particularly remarkable. It's a type of story that has been done to death. Also, the comedic tone that opened and closed the episode didn't work. Maybe if Walter had been more like Nick or Masson, or even the Walter Gilman of the original tale, but not with that tragic backstory. The triangular paintings were cool, though.

Edited to add (31/10): The more we think about this, the more problems we find. The first time the Witch House was mentioned, was when Mariana asked the Spiritualist Society to investigate the weird happenings there. Much like Lovecraft’s Walter Gilman, her experiences were dismissed. She also had a religious helper, the nun, who later tried to repel Keziah Mason with her crucifix, which resembles the actions of the religious tenants in the original story. So, why exactly was Walter's twin sister quest necessary in the first place? Since the people who made this didn't want to keep the Lovecraftian stuff, why didn't they just make Mariana the lead? At least, that would've kept the house as central to the story. Who cares if, unlike the original Walter, she wasn't actively seeking other worlds - it's not as if fidelity to the source material mattered when writing this. Also, why was Brown Jenkin called Jenkins Brown? We get 'Jenkins' instead of 'Jenkin' because we're embarrassed to admit that we made the same mistake, but why switch the order? It was such an unnecessary change. The only reason we didn't rank this last was because of The Viewing.

DAY 4

7.THE VIEWING

An astrophysicist, Charlotte, a psychic, Targ, a music producer, Randall, and a writer, Guy, are invited by a fabulously wealthy reclusive collector, Lionel, to his home for reasons unknown.

This was a mood. A 1970s psychedelic mood, and little else. A great deal of care must've gone into creating the sets, but the Stargazer Lilies were barely visible. The Outside was difficult to describe because it's different - this one is difficult to describe because there was no real plot. Or, to put it more accurately, there was one, but it was flimsy and buried under a lot of random weirdness, like Zahra's backstory. Why were Randall and Guy even invited? It made sense for the alien to affect Targ first, but why didn't it go after Charlotte, the astrophysicist who believed in aliens? It didn't even have a real ending, it just stopped. This was definitely the worst of the bunch.

8.THE MURMURING

Two grieving ornithologists, Nancy and Edgar, stay at an isolated old house while studying dunlins and their mesmerizing flight patterns. Soon, Nancy starts seeing the ghosts of the house's former occupants and senses a great tragedy occurred.

This was a gentle ending to a gory, violent series. The haunting wasn't too elaborate, and it was easy to guess what happened all those years ago. Much like Edith says in Crimson Peak, this wasn't a ghost story - it was a story with a ghost in it. It was all about grief and how to let go. We were rooting for Nancy and Edgar, and were glad there wasn't some dark revelation about their daughter's death.

VERDICT

This is an uneven series and didn't quite live up to the hype. So, here's our ranking of the episodes:

1.The Outside (crazy, good, and original)

2.The Graveyard Rats | The Murmuring (polar opposites, but equally enjoyable)

3.Lot 36 | The Autopsy (too much filler/build-up, but strong second half)

4.Pickman's Model (we might've liked this more if it hadn’t been an adaptation of Lovecraft’s story)

5.Dreams in the Witch House (bad adaptation and unoriginal)

6.The Viewing (WTF?! And no, we don't mean that as a compliment)