The Outside

Stacey works at a Bank, but isn't one of the gang, she likes taxidermy, she looks a little different, whilst her colleagues are all glorious, and love sensation. A new cream could change Stacey's life.

It has several macabre moments, but this episode is a bit more weird than the first three. It's good, it's not great. Very surreal, it felt more like sci fi than horror.

The era is created beautifully, with great clothes, the music, visuals etc. I love that the eighties are explored so often, it's a great era.

There was something quite bleak about this story, and I don't think it came from the actual event, most of it came from Stacey, and the lengths she'd go to, to fit in.

I love the branding of Alo Glo, well imagined, I could actually see that sitting on a shelf, not sure I could connect the effects of the product with the other ladies in the bank.

Dan Stevens was great, and this does boast a killer performance from Kate Micucci.

A mixed bag, 6/10.

The horrors of fitting in, looking the part & making friends, "The Outside" forces viewers to examine the horrifying things people do to fit in and the lengths they will go to be liked. Society often judges people by their "outside" appearance, rather than what's inside, and the people being misjudged wrongly accept the critiques made toward them, when they shouldn't be listening to what they think in the first place, but we're only human, right?

The horrors that unfold are all courtesy of a social commentary that sends the protagonist on a descent into the madness of vanity, but, it's all just a little too messy. There's a lot of other subtext being thrown around, and none of it is subtle at all. It's very in your face. It's predictable. And while it's disturbing, I can't help but feel that it was rather empty.

Kate Micucci is weird and wonderful! Dan Stevens is pure gold. The kill is gnarly as hell! The score is chilling. And some of the camera work is top notch. But this just wasn't my cup of tea!

Episode four of Guillermo Del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities is the strangest one yet, but is a lot of fun thanks to bold direction by Ana Lily Amirpour and a terrific central performance from Kate Micucci as social misfit Stacey, whose unusual looks lead her to try Alo Glo, an expensive skin cream that the TV adverts guarantee can transform a person inside and out. That it does, eventually turning the once gawky gal into a babe as promised but driving her to murder in the process. Miccuci is wonderfully weird as Stacey, her mannerisms suitably bizarre, her unorthodox appearance accentuated by some false teeth and a nasty hair-do.

Amirpour's stylish, surreal visuals perfectly compliment the craziness of the plot: Stacey's co-workers slathering each other with Alo Glo at a Secret Santa party is hilariously OTT (reminding me of the shunting scene from Society) and Stacey making out with a 'lotion being' in her basement is off-the-charts absurd. The ending might be lacking in genuine surprises, but the ride there is so enjoyably offbeat that it matters not.

Kate Micucci and. Martin Starr are amazing actors whose talents are completely wasted in this overlong, over-preachy, badly paced story. The point trying to be made (the cosmetics industry preying on vulnerable people's insecurities) is made in about 5 minutes and then the rest is just hammering it home over and over and over. This whole episode could have easily fit into a 15 minute segment of "Night Gallery". This had me reaching for the fast forward about 10 minutes in. It really suffers compared to other episodes of this show. Skip this one and re-watch "The Autopsy" or "Lot 36" as a better use of your time.

THE OUTSIDE is the worst episode of the anthology series yet, more of a heavy-handed satire than a genuine work of horror. The story is about a plain/ugly woman who's gifted some lotion to increase her beauty and the transformation that takes place within her. I get it, the look at the American beauty industrry is quite accurate, and yet the episode feels superficial and stretched out. There are only so many scenes we can see of someone applying lotion and scratching after all. It does have some commendably weird moments, but the gore seems shoehorned in and the last scene is breathtakingly stupid.