Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities | |
---|---|
Genre | |
Created by | Guillermo del Toro |
Based on | Cabinet of Curiosities by Guillermo del Toro[2] |
Presented by | Guillermo del Toro |
Composers | |
Country of origin |
|
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 1 |
No. of episodes | 8 |
Production | |
Executive producers |
|
Producer | Jeff Authors |
Production location | Toronto, Ontario |
Cinematography |
|
Editors |
|
Running time | 38–64 minutes |
Production companies |
|
Release | |
Original network | Netflix |
Original release | October 25, 2022 present | –
Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities is a horror anthology streaming television series created by Guillermo del Toro for Netflix.[4] It features eight modern horror stories in the traditions of the Gothic and Grand Guignol genres. Two are co-written by del Toro himself, while the others are written and directed by various filmmakers. It premiered on October 25, 2022.[5]
The series is "a collection of the Oscar-winning filmmaker's personally curated stories, described as [equally] sophisticated and horrific."[6] Del Toro introduces each episode.[7]
On May 14, 2018, it was announced that Netflix had given the production a series order. Executive producers included Guillermo del Toro, J. Miles Dale, and Gary Ungar. Del Toro also served as writer for multiple episodes and handpick other writers and directors to helm other episodes.[8][9][10]
In September 2021, The Hollywood Reporter announced that The Babadook filmmaker Jennifer Kent would write and direct an episode starring the film's lead Essie Davis.[11] The season would consist of seven other episodes, to be directed individually by Ana Lily Amirpour, Panos Cosmatos, Catherine Hardwicke, Guillermo Navarro, David Prior, Vincenzo Natali, and Keith Thomas, with writers such as Regina Corrado, Lee Patterson, Haley Z. Boston, Mika Watkins, and Aaron Stewart-Ahn.[11] The series was described as "in production", according to The Hollywood Reporter.[11]
Principal photography of the series began under the working title Guillermo del Toro Presents: 10 After Midnight on June 28, 2021 in Toronto and Hamilton Ontario Canada, and concluded on February 16, 2022.[12]
No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | "Lot 36" | Guillermo Navarro | Teleplay by : Regina Corrado and Guillermo del Toro Based on the short story by : Guillermo del Toro[note 1] | October 25, 2022 | |
Xenophobic, right-wing[13][14] veteran Nick purchases the rights to an abandoned storage room lot. He refuses Mexican immigrant Amelia's pleas to let her recover her familial belongings from her lot, which was mistakenly sold to him, cruelly leaving her nothing but her old padlock. He acquires a lot belonging to a deceased old man. Desperate for funds, he searches the lot for items to sell until he finds a German seance table and three volumes on demon summoning. An interested buyer, Roland, urges him to find the fourth volume, which would be worth $300,000 together. The two search the room, finding a secret passage leading to a chamber which contains a dormant demon, summoned and sealed into the desiccated body of the old man's long-missing sister. Spotting the fourth volume and ignoring Roland's warnings of the supernatural, Nick goes to retrieve it, but breaks the seal keeping the demon contained. It emerges as a writhing tentacled mass and consumes Roland, and chases Nick through the dark storage warehouse. Finding a locked door, and Amelia outside, he begs for her to open the door, but she locks him in with the padlock, leaving him to be consumed by the demon. Cast : Tim Blake Nelson, Sebastian Roché, Demetrius Grosse, Elpidia Carrillo[15] | |||||
2 | "Graveyard Rats" | Vincenzo Natali | Teleplay by : Vincenzo Natali Based on the short story by : Henry Kuttner | October 25, 2022 | |
Masson is a grave robber in desperate need of funds. His attempts have been thwarted by rats, who terrify him and who rapidly swarm and remove any valuable possessions held by recently buried corpses. When his financial situation becomes dire, he learns of a recently buried aristocrat and seeks to unearth him and his valuables, but finds the rats have already dug an enormous hole and dragged the corpse underground. Crawling in after them, he encounters an enormous mother rat who chases him through their network of tunnels. He falls into a hole and lands in a subterranean temple dedicated to a tentacled eldritch god. He steals a talisman from a corpse, which animates and chases after him demanding its return. Crawling back through the tunnels, he manages to cause a cave-in that kills the mother rat and stops the corpse. Climbing toward a light above, he finds to his horror that it is merely the glint of a coffin lid's plaque. Trapped inside and buried alive, he is swarmed by rats. Later, other grave robbers unearth his corpse, from which emerge numerous rats. Cast : David Hewlett,[15] Julian Richings, Nabeel El Khafif | |||||
3 | "The Autopsy" | David Prior | Teleplay by : David S. Goyer Based on the short story by : Michael Shea | October 26, 2022 | |
Sheriff Nate Craven asks friend Dr. Carl Winters to perform autopsies on several miners who recently died when one of them, Joe Allen, caused an explosion while carrying a mysterious object. Winters has terminal cancer, but agrees. As he records his autopsies, Allen's body reanimates, revealing that it is inhabited by an alien parasite. Allen encountered the parasite and unsuccessfully attempted to destroy it. It explains that its species have no sensory organs and use their hosts for pleasure and nourishment. It revels in stimulating its host's senses to extremes and relishes keeping the host conscious but helpless as it consumes them from within. Sensing Winters's cancer, it subdues him and plans to parasitize him, using his cancer as a replenishing food source. It cuts itself out of Allen's body, and temporarily senseless, begins burrowing into Winters's body. Winters grabs the scalpel from the dying Allen. He gouges out his eyes, punctures his eardrums, and writes a message on his chest in blood before cutting his throat. Inside their shared mind, Winters reveals to the parasite that he has trapped it in his now disabled, dying body. The message on his chest instructs Craven to listen to his recordings, which has captured the entire conversation, and to burn his body and the parasite trapped within. Cast : F. Murray Abraham, Glynn Turman, Luke Roberts[15] | |||||
4 | "The Outside" | Ana Lily Amirpour | Teleplay by : Haley Z. Boston Based on a webcomic by : Emily Carroll[note 2] | October 26, 2022 | |
Stacey, a seemingly-unattractive and awkward woman, longs to be beautiful like the women in her workplace. After being invited to her coworker's Christmas party, Stacey is given a popular lotion called Alo Glo, while her taxidermy Secret Santa gift is poorly received. Despondent, she tries the lotion but finds that it gives her a rash. At home, her husband tries to reassure her that she is perfect just the way she is, to no avail, as she expresses the loneliness she feels from being excluded. After mysteriously being contacted by the creator of the lotion through her TV, she agrees to buy more Alo Glo, but her rash persists. The lotion leaks from the bottles, forming a humanoid that Stacey embraces, before it discorporates into her bathtub. When her husband tries to shake her from her obsession, she murders him. Climbing into the lotion bath, she emerges finally beautiful. She taxidermies her husband and arrives to work, stunning her coworkers who invite her to join them. Having finally lost herself, Stacey revels in her coworkers' attention and new shallow social status. Cast : Kate Micucci, Martin Starr, Dan Stevens[15] | |||||
5 | "Pickman's Model" | Keith Thomas | Teleplay by : Lee Patterson Based on the short story by : H. P. Lovecraft | October 27, 2022 | |
Art student Will Thurber becomes friends with Richard Pickman, whose horrific works of art depicting demons and gruesome scenes mesmerize him. Years later, Thurber, now a museum curator, remains enthralled but disturbed by Pickman's works, suffering horrific dreams. Pickman, now a successful artist, drops in to visit, interacting with his wife, Rebecca, and young son, James. When James also begins having terrifying dreams after seeing Pickman's work, Thurber confronts Pickman. Pickman begs him to come to his home and see his works, explaining that he only ever wanted for the works to be seen. Thurber lights the works on fire and accidentally shoots Pickman, who reveals that the works were not based on imagination, but real life and scenes of the future. A demon depicted in one of the paintings emerges and drags Pickman's corpse away. The next day, Thurber is horrified to find his museum displaying Pickman's works, completely undamaged, and that James and Rebecca have viewed them. He sends the two home and orders the paintings destroyed. Returning home, he discovers that the paintings have driven Rebecca mad. She has gouged out her eyes and butchered and cooked their son, just as depicted in one of Pickman's paintings. Cast : Ben Barnes, Crispin Glover, Oriana Leman[15] | |||||
6 | "Dreams in the Witch House" | Catherine Hardwicke | Teleplay by : Mika Watkins Based on the short story by : H. P. Lovecraft | October 27, 2022 | |
Walter Gilman witnesses his twin sister Epperley's spirit be dragged away upon her death to the Forest of Lost Souls. Years later as a grown man, he seeks to enter the location in hopes of saving her. He rents a room in the house of an executed witch, Keziah Mason, and takes an Indigenous drug designed to take him to the Forest. After several attempts, he locates his sister and even finds that he is able to bring a piece of her dress into the real world with him. His attempts gain the attention of the spirit of Keziah and her familiar, a human-faced rat, Jenkins Brown. When Walter successfully brings Epperley back, they learn that Keziah and Jenkins have also come back, and that Walter must die before dawn in order to bring one of them back permanently. Keziah attempts to kill Walter, but Epperley kills her and peacefully passes away herself. However, Jenkins takes advantage of the situation and burrows into Walter's body, bursting forth and killing him before dawn. He then possesses Walter's body, triumphant. Cast : Rupert Grint,[22] Ismael Cruz Córdova, DJ Qualls, Nia Vardalos, Tenika Davis, Gaby Moreno[15][23] | |||||
7 | "The Viewing" | Panos Cosmatos | Panos Cosmatos & Aaron Stewart-Ahn | October 28, 2022 | |
Wealthy recluse Lionel Lassiter invites sublime musician Randall Roth, extraterrestrial life-studying physicist Charlotte Xie, best-selling author Guy Landon, and purported psychic Targ Reinhhard to his home for a special viewing, intended to help them all expand their consciousness. Flanked by his physician Dr. Zahra, he encourages them all to take several drugs to place them on the same wavelength. He takes them to a secret room containing an otherworldly meteor. The meteor reacts to their collective presence and they fall into a trance. The meteor cracks open and an oozing entity emerges. The power emanating from the being melts Targ's face and Zahra's body, explodes Landon's head, and causes Xie and Roth to flee for their lives. The entity melts down and possesses Lassiter's body, stalking the grounds of his home and killing his guard with electricity. Xie and Roth flee by car, stopping eventually to question what occurred before them. Meanwhile, the entity, now merged with Lassiter into a grisly form, enters the sewers, disrupting the electricity of the city with its uncontrolled aura. Cast : Peter Weller, Eric André, Sofia Boutella,[24] Charlyne Yi, Steve Agee, Michael Therriault, Saad Siddiqui[15] | |||||
8 | "The Murmuring" | Jennifer Kent | Teleplay by : Jennifer Kent Based on the short story by : Guillermo del Toro[note 1] | October 28, 2022 | |
Nancy and Edgar Bradley are ornithologists studying bird murmurations and who recently lost their daughter Ava. They go to a remote country home to continue their studies and get away from their grief. Nancy begins seeing ghostly apparitions of a crying boy and a screaming angry woman. Edgar believes these visions are from the strain of her grief, which Nancy's kept inside all throughout. Nancy learns that the former owner, Claudette, drowned her son and committed suicide. During a fight over these visions, Edgar expresses frustration over Nancy never crying following Ava's death, nor wishing to talk about it, and his hopelessness over their strained relationship. Despondent, he leaves for his research site the next morning. Alone, Nancy is chased by Claudette's screaming ghost and hears her son crying that his mother is angry with him. Comforting him, Nancy encourages him to run into her arms. He does, finally passing on. Nancy then witnesses Claudette committing suicide, realizing that her angry screams were in despair over drowning her son. Claudette's spirit is carried by an enormous bird murmuration, which envelops Nancy, allowing her to finally cry and confront her grief. She contacts a relieved Edgar, saying she is finally ready to talk about Ava. Cast : Essie Davis, Andrew Lincoln, Hannah Galway[15][25][26] |
The series has received a positive response from critics. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 95% approval rating with an average rating of 7.9/10, based on 40 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Horror maestro Guillermo del Toro lends his household name to a collection of spooky tales directed by genre veterans and promising newcomers—with each curious trinket adding up to a treasure trove of gothic storytelling."[27] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 74 out of 100 based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[28]
Article Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities in English Wikipedia took following places in local popularity ranking:
Presented content of the Wikipedia article was extracted in 2022-11-09 based on https://en.wikipedia.org/?curid=68630624