When you put Guillermo del Toro’s name on something, it invites certain expectations. Whether he’s making superhero movies or gothic romance stories, the director’s works all share certain sensibilities: a love of outcasts, incredible attention to detail, a seamless marriage of high and pop culture, and lots of really cool monsters. That all remains true in Cabinet of Curiosities, a horror anthology on Netflix. But it’s also much more than that: while del Toro’s name is in the title, he’s enlisted a carefully curated group of directors, writers, and actors to bring each story to life. The result is a collection of spooky stories that span an incredible range of tones and styles.
Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities review: eclectic horror on Netflix
Each episode starts out the same: del Toro introduces the evening’s story with a brief monologue while pulling strange objects out of a literal cabinet of curiosities. It’s sort of like a less embarrassing version of the opening from HBO’s Spawn series. The series itself is a collection of eight standalone episodes, each around an hour long, which all poke around the edges of horror. Some are straight-up ghost stories; others veer into sci-fi. But they’re all spooky in their own way. There’s also an interesting release Cadence — two episodes will release daily for the rest of the week — that gives the whole thing a Halloween event feel.
What’s most impressive about the anthology is the sheer variety on display. Even when episodes are about similar topics, they’re nothing alike. For instance, there