Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities

I really, really wanted to love this series.

Guillermo del Toro has produced some amazing horror, but this is probably not in his top 40%. Things started well, and the first three episodes are great in a non schmaltzy, Creepshow kind of way.

Episode four changed things for me. It was an undeniably female body shaming story, how far will you go to be accepted by the elite. Horror? Probably. And there were a few gratuitous moments with the taxidermy, but, not the main thrust of the story.

Loved Episode 5, based on a H. P. Lovecraft story.

Episode 6 was Okay, Ron Weasley chasing his dead sister into the after life.

Episode 7 was just plain weird, and didn't enjoy. Had a strange '70's vibe. The last episode was a poignant, but ultimately boring. This sneaked in at 6 stars as the good episodes were very good, but really a 50/50 effort.

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!

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 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.

Gotta love seeing those inside bits eh.

A bit of an uneasy watching hodge podge. Each episode starts with del Toro visiting his cabinet and grabbing something that seemingly relates to the oncoming story.

Hitchcock he's not.

Every episode has something going for it. Originality, production and mostly fine acting...but most of the characters are just so unpleasant, one doesn't care what happens to them.

My 3 picks are "Graveyard Rats" (Good Fun), "The Inside" (beware those late night infomercials) and "The Murmuring" (classic spooky ghost story).

I watched this first series in the cold hard daylight which probably lessened the enjoyment effect somewhat.

Probably more a late night thing (Duh!!!).