It’s night in the cemetery and Masson is digging up the fresh grave with anticipation. It should be his big catch: A valuable saber was buried with the deceased. Then the grave robber stops, taps carefully on the coffin, only hears a dull sound and already suspects something bad. The rats were faster again. You can hear the excited squeaking of the animals, which seem to be pulling the dead man through a tunnel even deeper into the ground. Out of necessity, Masson goes underground with the animals and in a dark labyrinth he not only encounters an oversized rat with a gaping mouth, but also an apparently valuable chain that is guarded by a mummy creature that is very reminiscent of Eddie, the mascot the metal band Iron Maiden.
Masson’s story is one of eight episodes in total Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities. In his horror anthology, the Oscar-winning director (The whisper of the water) introduces the viewer to the horror film genre, a kind of crash course – gothic, science fiction, classic horror, everything included. And of course it is always the portrayal of the unimaginable that captivates the viewer.
F. Murray Abraham battles an alien that inhabits human bodies
For his cabinet of curiosities, del Toro wrote two stories himself – he carefully curated the rest. He also acts as a presenter. Much like Jonathan Frakes did in the mystery series X factor the director welcomes the viewers as a host in a suit and says a few words about the supernatural. So about witches and monsters. On the other side and beyond. fantasy and reality. It is a playful and mystical symbiosis of all elements that del Toro brings together.
And here, too, he tends to play the role of host: he left the direction of the eight self-contained episodes to a few well-known horror colleagues. Among them Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night), Jennifer Kent (The Babadook) or Panos Cosmatos (Mandy).
As with most anthology series, quality varies between episodes. The third episode is particularly mystical: “The Autopsy” (David Prior). Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham has to present himself as pathologist Dr. Carl Winter will deal with extremely strange deaths and an alien that inhabits human bodies.
But it’s not always just the supernatural that gives the viewer the creeps. Tomb robber Masson succumbs to a very worldly greed, and bank teller Stacey (Kate Micucci) undergoes a horrific transformation in “The Outside” to match her co-workers’ ideals of beauty. Very human. So very scary.
Cabinet of Curiositieson Netflix.
You can find more series recommendations here.