Guillermo Del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities

[Eldan]

Anyone watching? Del Toro finally got to do some Lovecraft, and it's all quite good.

[Callos_DeTerran]

I quite liked it! Even as an executive producer, you can still see del Toro's fingerprints all over the episodes. The first episode had a few eyeroll moments (but otherwise was very well done) and the last two kind of dragged and weren't the most scary, but the rest? Very solid watches that I'd recommend to most people to enjoy! Not super gory and not super tense/scary, just all around enjoyable.

[Imbalance]

I'm two or three eps in and enjoying it. They're better than Crimson Peak, which I had just watched prior. All good visuals, but the short form is preferable to me.

[Eldan]

I quite liked it! Even as an executive producer, you can still see del Toro's fingerprints all over the episodes. The first episode had a few eyeroll moments (but otherwise was very well done) and the last two kind of dragged and weren't the most scary, but the rest? Very solid watches that I'd recommend to most people to enjoy! Not super gory and not super tense/scary, just all around enjoyable.

I'm also only a few episodes in, and I wouldn't call it very scary either, but it's tense enough and enjoyable.

And while he's only executive producer, they have some excellent guest directors with names in the horror genre:
Guillermo Navarro was cinematographer for Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth and directed on Hannibal and Luke Cage.
Vincenzo Natalli wrote and directed Cube, Splice and In the Tall Grass. Plus he worked on Hannibal, The Strain, Orphan Black and American Gods.
David Prior did The Empty Man, which is an excellent movie not enough people talk about.
David S. Goyer is huge, of course. Wrote Blade, The Dark Knight and, well, also a lot of crap like Dawn of Justice and Ghost Rider 2.
Ana Lily Amirpour did A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. And she was on Legion.
Catherine Hardwicke I didn't know, but she worked on Twilight, funnily enough.
Panos Cosmatos did weird stuff like Mandy.
And Jennifer Kent is the director of The Babadook.

Basically, that's a list that should convince fans to give this show a look on its own.

[animorte]

I’ve always enjoyed his work, didn’t even know this was a thing. So thanks.

[Giggling Ghast]

Does anyone want to offer a theory in what the flark was happening in “The Viewing?”

Spoiler

Show

I’m going to offer a theory that the creature in the rock was not alien, but in fact the Devil or another demon, and the four “experts” were intended to be sacrifices representing facets of human knowledge.

That whole preamble with the alcohol and drugs was intended to prepare the subjects and make them more suitable as sacrifices. Why else bring a musician and a novelist to see a weird rock? Of course, the Devil ended up turning on Lassiter.

That, or the creature was the universe’s most aggressive anti-drug crusader.

[BeerMug Paladin]

I always love some well made horror and good cosmic horror is especially rare enough to make me enthusiastic for it whenever I see it. Several of these stories hit that 'weird fiction' area wonderfully. And even the weaker ones are quite good. I am still holding out hope that one day Guillermo gets to do Mountains of Madness, so seeing something like this do well makes me hope that could be possible. But even if no, this anthology is great and I hope it can continue.

[Eldan]

Watched a few more. They kinda screwed up Dreams in the Witch House for me by making it just a ghost story. The original short story was more interesting to me, even if it is kind of rambling and unfocused. In the original short story, Gilman is a folklore student who wants to study the witch cult and finds out that the 17th century witches learned to travel to other dimensions. He then travels to other worlds and converses, often even peacefully, with various weird aliens. The entire part with witches and child sacrifice only comes later and I find that the less interesting part of the story. Also, bringing back a dead relative is a bit overplayed for me as a motive, I'd rather see someone who's actually curious about a monumental scientific discovery.

Brown Jenkins was fun, though.

[Janisqu]

I had high expectations, so there is a little disappointment. but overall the project is good.

[Imbalance]

A few more down. I found the Lovecraft adaptations boring. I actually fell asleep during Dreams in the Witch House.

[Eldan]

Yeah, those weren't great. They really stretched them out, and in case of Dreams in the Witchhouse, also left out all the parts I find most interesting. Pickman's Model is a really short story, you could probably handle it in 20 minutes.

[Giggling Ghast]

I think there’s somewhat universal agreement that Dreams in the Witch House was the weakest episode of the season.

I do think Rupert Grint did a good job in the role, however.

[Imbalance]

Does anyone want to offer a theory in what the flark was happening in “The Viewing?”

Spoiler

Show

I’m going to offer a theory that the creature in the rock was not alien, but in fact the Devil or another demon, and the four “experts” were intended to be sacrifices representing facets of human knowledge.

That whole preamble with the alcohol and drugs was intended to prepare the subjects and make them more suitable as sacrifices. Why else bring a musician and a novelist to see a weird rock? Of course, the Devil ended up turning on Lassiter.

That, or the creature was the universe’s most aggressive anti-drug crusader.

Spoiler: Clues in the dialogue

Show

The psychic guy is never told he is wrong about the Aztec architectural influences. I'm not an expert on their myths or pantheon, but saw some similarities in things I read long ago about a deity that consumes filth and spews it as a weapon. There's more to unpack, but I'd be talking outside of my wheelhouse.

I think there’s somewhat universal agreement that Dreams in the Witch House was the weakest episode of the season.

I do think Rupert Grint did a good job in the role, however.

Agreed. I liked his role and his acting, but the pacing was meh.

[gbaji]

I enjoyed it. Some of the episodes felt more Black Mirror to me than "classic horror", but I can deal with that. I did enjoy that several of the stories were ones I recognized, even if I didn't remember all the details (some of them I read probably 30+ years ago).

I think the only one that was really disappointing (ok, the Witch House one, but I understood why they made the changes they did), was Pickman's Model. For such a short story, being expanded into a longish episode, it felt like they got some things really right (how they showed his horror on seeing the images worked really well), but then shifted jarringly at the end. They presented it as though he seemed to be the only person who saw the horrible images in Pickman's pictures or had the nightmares, etc. Everyone else seemed to be played off like it was just him going crazy for no good reason or something. Then, it's suddenly shifted around at the very end. Dunno. Just felt "off". Like the writers couldn't decide which direction they were going to go with the story, and sorta wrote it down the middle, so it could go either way, then decided on an ending literally at the end.

And yeah, the unnecessary moralizing in Lot 36 was a bit annoying as well. The false implication that he would have survived if only he was a nicer person does nothing to help the story. Dunno. There are good ways to make this sort of moral judgement/outcome in a story. This wasn't really one of them. I actually enoyed the core of the story as a somewhat classic "OMG horror!" short. I just felt that the entire bit with the woman could have been left out and it would have actually worked better and felt less like the author was preaching at us on a completely different topic. It's also incredibly muddled and frankly questionable. So if someone did something that cost you some property, it's ok to let that person die? Imagine if instead of a demon chasing him, it was a fire in the building and all she had to do was unlock the door and let him out? What morality are we teaching here? Are we supposed to smugly watch the ending and conclude that he deserved to die? Hmm...

It would have worked far better if instead of her staying around (for some unexplained reason), the story contrived some other scenario where he put a padlock on the outer door or something to keep her/someone from getting in, then later that same action does him in since he can't get out. That puts it into the classic "you did it to yourself" moral point, which I feel is much stronger than "It's ok for me to kill you if you aren't nice to me" bit that was actually in the story. If you're going to preach in a story, at least make what you're preaching a good message. Otherwise, drop it, and go with something else as your "twist".

[Sholos]

You know, I'm not sure the show actually comments one way or the other about the morality of her actions. She isn't celebrated by anyone in the episode; heck, she doesn't even get her stuff back. It seems to me that there is more a visceral sense of what we consider justice that is itself scary and pushed back against.

[gbaji]

You know, I'm not sure the show actually comments one way or the other about the morality of her actions. She isn't celebrated by anyone in the episode; heck, she doesn't even get her stuff back. It seems to me that there is more a visceral sense of what we consider justice that is itself scary and pushed back against.

Sure. The show itself doesn't directly comment on it, but it's pretty clear what the expected audience reaction is. You're practically beat over the head with "She really got him good! If only he hadn't been such a jerk to her, maybe she would have saved him". I mean, there isn't really any other way to interprete that scene, right? Literally, the only reason the author (Del Toro himself, I beleve) had that character hang around and still be there in that spot at that time was to create exactly that reaction on the part of the audience.

But having had that initial reaction, one might think further and ask "Is that really a good thing?". And yeah, I suppose we could say that's the point of her being there, to create moral introspection for us, the audience on something like this (at least, I hope at least some people had the same thought and didn't just cheer her "getting hiim", and left it at that).

Ah. Which is why I mentioned that some of the episodes felt more Black Mirror to me. This is exactly the sort of stuff that show often highlighted. It's not "bad" at all. Just sometimes a bit overdone.

Oh. I said earlier that it was false because, had he stopped what he was doing and helped the woman out, we can presume she would have taken what belongings were left in her old storage room, and then left (or any combination of sequences of events involving him helping her out instead of blowing her off as he did). Then, after dealing with her, he would have taken the stuff to the antique dealer, and then the whole sequence of events would have happened (presumably identically), only when he tried to escape, the woman would not have been there at all. I guess I just felt the entire sequence resulting in her happening to be there right at that time was quite contrived. I'm just not a fan of unlikely timing/contrivances like that in a story, doubly so when their sole purpose is some form of "gotcha".