Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities (2022)
Tim Blake Nelson, David Hewlett, Ben Barnes, Rupert Grint, Lize Johnston, Kevin Keppy, Essie Davis, Peter Weller, F Murray Abraham, Kate Micucci, Crispin Glover, Andrew Lincoln, Martin Starr, Sebastian Roché, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Dan Stevens, DJ Qualls, and Nia Vardalos

So I’ve been meaning to watch this since it came out. I was immediately intrigued by the Netflix blurb, and the fact that there’s so many actors that I know and like in it. I put it in my to-watch list… and immediately forgot about it, as I do. I finally got around to watching the first 2 episodes the other night, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.

It’s an 8 episode anthology show, that seems to be all horror from what I’ve seen. In the first episode, a cranky old man who owes money to a shady individual buys a storage locker to sell its contents and gets a whole lot more than he bargained for. In the second episode, a graverobber thinks he’s going to have a great haul after a wealthy man passes away, only to find that the “graveyard rats” already have a plan for him.

First the good, and there’s quite a bit of it. It looks really good. The cinematography, production, and atmosphere are all on point. The acting in the first 2 episodes was great, although I can’t say if it stays good all the way through, since I haven’t seen the rest. It’s definitely movie-quality. The bad: I can’t say I loved it. The first episode did a good job at building tension and while the payoff was good, the episode just kind of ended with so many questions left unanswered. The second episode ended better, and had a more complete story, and while it wasn’t bad, it was just kind of “meh”. I’m not sure it gripped me enough to get me to watch the rest of the episodes. There are actors I’m looking forward to seeing (Ben Barnes *cough*), so maybe that’ll be enough to get me to sit down to it again. As it is right now, though, it only gets a 6.5/10.

M.

This is currently streaming on Netflix.