Le Cabinet de curiosités de Guillermo del Toro

I thought I would not review this series until I watched all 8 of the episodes.

Episodes 1 to 4 were very good but I would not call them horror per se.

Episode 5 was also very good and more humour in it than the previous ones.

Episode 6 with Rupert Grint was okay and I was disappointed with it, Rupert is a good actor and I thought he would have gone onto bigger and better things, maybe this will kick his career in to overdrive.

Episode 7 was awful, the worst out of the bunch. I was so looking forward to this one as it had Peter Weller in it, in fact if you look quickly at him he looked like David Carradine in his latter years. This one is worth a miss.

Episode 8, the final episode was the only real horror in the whole series, this one was also very good. If you like a good gothic feel horror then this one is for you.

Overall a good series of course with hit and miss episodes.

Like Jordan Peele's recent try in a newer Twilight Zone, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities has good production, cinematography, lighting and on occasion great atmosphere. However, for me, after watching four episodes, each have been bogged down by story and payoff. What the 1950s Twilight Zone did in only 25 minutes was astounding, not that every one was top tier amazing, but still gave a relatively coherent and well done story with interesting characters. In this day and age however, with Netflix and Paramount+ and Amazon Prime, an hour and change is the norm and it just doesn't work and I guess I hoped Toro would avoid this problem.

Every episode has setup upon setup and when it finally does get to the actually meat, there's been so many appetizers I feel full. Or the climax is so short I sit thinking, "Wait, it's over?" Even my favorite so far "The Autopsy" has Toro introduce it, giving away a vital plot point that could have been revealed later on. There's then almost half an hour until we get to said autopsy, wherein when the big twist is revealed has a James Bond villain explanation for the ages (Thanks David S. Goyer, as always).

Not that I'm opposed to world building, character introduction, atmosphere creating tension, but where minutes-watched-algorithms have replaced ratings, 1 hour+ episodes that could be edited down significantly for our enjoyment would be and should be crucial. I'm still rooting for the show, because I love anthologies, but I also know LESS is MORE.

Edit: I've watched the next four and feel they too could have been edited down to avoid redundancy, but Pickman's Model might be the exception. It was a brilliant slow decent into madness that makes Lovecraft so special. After watching all 8 I noticed scenes that could have been combined or characters cut completely. Either way, I still hope there's a season 2.

Guillermo del Toro introduces a series of one off takes of horror.

Each episode offers something a little different, they are all beautifully presented, well made and superbly acted, there are some great special effects, with some impressive visuals.

It's hard to score this as an overall series, as the quality varies so much, I found the order of episodes a little curious, I'm not sure I'd have gone with the first two at the start.

If you're looking for an out and out horror series, you may be a little disappointed, some episodes have it, some are just strange, with implied horror, but no real scares.

The standout episode is Autopsy, it has everything, true horror, a strong atmosphere, and was everything I hoped this series was going to be. I also really rated The Murmuring.

The Witch's house was the biggest disappointment, it was the one I looked forward to most of all, for me it just didn't work.

It's watchable, and some of them I'd watch again, some I wouldn't. 7/10.

Guillermo del Toro is it master of visuals. I think of him as the Mexican Tim Burton of horror. He quite often get top a-listers to work for him and his films. But the acting talent and the visuals cannot overcome the terrible screenplays that were put into the show. Unfortunately, his production screenplays haven't been very good for some time. This anthology also doesn't have the best directing talent behind the camera. Many of the dialogue lines are just terribly written. It's not really the actors' fault. It's just the lines provided are bad because we have seen these actors do better work with other film directors. Guillermo del Toro should hire better screenwriters and directors and less on a-listers. The visuals alone don't make great entertainment. You really need a good screenplay to accompany it.

I stumbled upon this by mistake while browsing around in Netflix so I had zero expectations going into it. Knowing Guillermo del Toro's largely striking, magical, and gorgeous previous works, I figured this would be a delicious visual treat if nothing else. That it was.

All in all this first series was highly entertaining with a diverse set of stories, themes, and visuals. I won't spoil anything but a number of the shorts feature marvelously revolting blood & gore, with little or no CGI to spoil the realism (or perhaps the lack thereof, with some extra-gory over-the-top nastiness sprinkled in).

A few of the shorts trodded along slowly but all were thoroughly enjoyable. I hope this series continues!