Cabinet of Curiosities: Everything We Know About Guillermo del Toro’s Netflix Anthology Series
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The post Cabinet of Curiosities: Everything We Know About Guillermo del Toro’s Netflix Anthology Series appeared first on Consequence.
Master of horror and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro will provide fans with another installment of scares with his upcoming project, Cabinet of Curiosities. One of two projects the director is developing with Netflix this fall (the other being the buzzy Pinocchio, set to premiere on the service this December), del Toro serves as executive producer and co-showrunner for the new anthology series.
As one of the genre’s modern icons, del Toro’s talent as a writer and director for horror has been evident through films, television, and video games. From Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy to more sci-fi-oriented ventures like Pacific Rim and the Oscar-winning The Shape of Water, del Toro’s vision for otherworldly tales is unmatched. His legacy is one that goes beyond horror, but Cabinet of Curiosities promises to confirm his ability to spook the viewer to their core.
Here’s everything we know about del Toro’s next project. You can find our review here.
What Is Cabinet of Curiosities?
Inspired by anthology works of the past such as The Twilight Zone, Cabinet of Curiosities will take place over four nights, with each night featuring two new episodes. With eight stories in total, each episode will have a different tone and subject matter, as well as a unique cast and crew hand-picked by del Toro himself.
Del Toro will host the special as creator and executive producer, and he is also joined by J. Miles Dale, Gary Ungar, and Regina Corrado as executive producers. Dale, who worked with del Toro on The Shape of Water, is the co-showrunner.
Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities Is a Horror Anthology Haunted By Creative Freedom: Review
What Can I Expect In Each Episode?
Cabinet of Curiosities (Netflix)
“Lot 36”
Director: Guillermo Navarro
Writer: Regina Corrado
Cast: Tim Blake Nelson, Elpidia Carrillo, Demetrius Grosse, and Sebastian Roché
According to del Toro, “Lot 36” stemmed from “a personal experience” after he lost his storage unit to someone who purchased it via auction. “It was such a nightmare experience for me to try to buy what was in there back,” del Toro said in a recent statement released by Netflix. “So the character is basically me pleading with the guy that bought my unit to give me my personal things back.”
Del Toro enlisted Pan’s Labyrinth cinematographer Guillermo Navarro to direct this episode. Navarro joined Cabinet of Curiosities not only for the strong script, but to also work alongside del Toro once again. “I think the important thing about this project is that it’s Guillermo del Toro and Guillermo Navarro working together again,” Navarro told Netflix.
Cabinet of Curiosities (Netflix)
“Graveyard Rats”
Director: Vincenzo Natali
Writer: Vincenzo Natali
Cast: David Hewlett
For episode writer and director Vincenzo Natali, he hopes that viewers come away feeling one sense.
“I hope they feel nauseous!,” Natali told Netflix in that same statement. “I hope that they feel like they want to vomit. After they watch my episode. I hope they are, like, sitting, quivering in a cold sweat at the end of my episode. And yet, somehow feel thrilled by it.”
In a series that boasts spectacular production design, Dale found that a standout in that department was the work done on the tunnels for this episode which also features, as the title alludes to, one giant rat.
“Not only did we have to build a series of tunnels that a guy would be crawling through, but we also had to make it shootable in terms of a camera system that came along the top and cutouts on the side and then a fitting for our giant Queen Rat that the guys from Spectral Motion were puppeteering so that was a particular engineering challenge,” Dale said.
Cabinet of Curiosities (Netflix)
“Pickman’s Model”
Director: Keith Thomas
Writer: Lee Patterson
Cast: Ben Barnes, Crispin Glover, and Oriana Leman
Based on an H.P. Lovecraft short story, director Keith Thomas said that the episode’s “core” revolves around an array of paintings, each of which were approached in the same style as a pioneering horror classic.
“There are dozens of them and they’re all painted by incredibly talented folks,” Thomas told Netflix. “The key to them, however, is how we present them. In the way that in Alien, Ridley Scott didn’t show you the entire alien, he only showed you bits and pieces and your mind had to work out ‘What is this thing?’ We’re doing the same thing with the paintings.”
Crispin Glover, who takes on the role of Pickman in this episode, also noted how these paintings can be viewed in an ambiguous light.
“I feel like the art is… multiply interpretable… that’s something I spoke with Keith about,” Glover told Netflix. “I felt that it’s important that it isn’t about the paintings but that there’s something underneath that’s a conduit for something else to come through, rather than it being the actual art.”
Cabinet of Curiosities (Netflix)
“Dreams in the Witch House”
Director: Catherine Hardwicke
Writer: Mika Watkins
Cast: Rupert Grint, Ismael Cruz Cordova, DJ Qualls, Nia Vardalos, and Tenika Davis
Another Lovecraftian tale, director Catherine Hardwicke applauded writer Mika Watkins’ adaptation of the Lovecraft story and how she produced a product “much more active and much more cinematic.”
“She has this very strong imagination and figured out how to dramatize an internal novel,” Hardwicke told Netflix. “How to make it make us feel things, make us feel that conflict instead of just being inside a character’s head. She gave everyone interesting motives and really twisted the story into this beautiful tale.”
The episode will feature a witch that was created solely with prosthetics. The work spent on creating this caused former Harry Potter star Rupert Grint to feel uneasy on set.
“The witch is kind of like this half tree and I think the idea is that she’s partly fused with the tree and she’s like part bark and to see it in the flesh. I couldn’t stop staring at it and I was dreaming about it, it was quite disturbing,” Grint told Netflix. “And even more disturbing is watching her have noodles at lunch.”
Cabinet of Curiosities (Netflix)
“The Autopsy”
Director: David Prior
Writer: David S. Goyer
Cast: F. Murray Abraham, Glynn Turman, and Luke Roberts
The fifth episode of the anthology pairs director David Prior with Academy Award-winner F. Murray Abraham in a murder mystery with a twist. Being “an avid follower” of Abraham for some time, Prior told Netflix that when the opportunity comes to work with a talent like Murray, you take it. “There’s a kind of actor that feels like the work has to be really hard in order to justify their process. He has no time for any of that stuff.”
As for Murray, his character of Dr. Winters offers him a chance to play a role not typical of him, the hero. “What [Winters] hopes to do, finally, I believe, is save humanity,” Murray told Netflix. “It’s a very big thing for me to say. But it’s important because I usually play the character who wants to destroy humanity.”
Cabinet of Curiosities (Netflix)
“The Outside”
Director: Ana Lily Amirpour
Writer: Haley Z. Boston
Cast: Kate Micucci, Martin Starr, Dan Stevens
In the concluding episode of the third night, director Ana Lily Amirpour was blunt about her audience takeaway following “The Outside.”
“I hope they just have ten thousand orgasms,” Amirpour told Netflix.
Bringing Amirpour on to be a part of Cabinet of Curiosities was a perfect fit, as the director sees says that she and del Toro understand each other well. When del Toro reached out about the series, Amirpour said, “He gave me total freedom” if she was a fan of the script.
“Guillermo is a dear friend of mine,” Amirpour added. “He’s one of the few artists and storytellers that I feel like I can personally relate to, where he’s truly matching genres. It’s hard to place what he is exactly and so he becomes his own category and I feel similarly with my own work.”
Cabinet of Curiosities (Netflix)
“The Murmuring”
Director: Jennifer Kent
Writer: Jennifer Kent
Cast: Essie Davis, Andrew Lincoln, and Hannah Galway
After coming up with the story for “The Murmuring,” del Toro realized that the opening episode of the finale night would be a piece that would be difficult to create. This was a major factor in him bringing Jennifer Kent in to perfect his idea.
“Trusting [Kent] and giving her ‘The Murmuring’ for me was very important because it’s the story that I was the closest to,” del Toro told Netflix. “In terms of emotional tone I knew it was gonna be the hardest one to deliver. I trusted Jennifer with the story which she completely absorbed and made her own.”
For Kent, her interest in “The Murmuring” stemmed from a curiosity toward grief, a subject “that has endless permutations.”
“It suits itself to a horror space,” Kent told Netflix. “I think it was C.S. Lewis that said in the book that he wrote after the loss of his wife, ‘No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear.’ It is a frightening thing to go through.”
Cabinet of Curiosities (Netflix)
“The Viewing”
Directed by: Panos Cosmatos
Written by: Panos Cosmatos & Aaron Stewart-Ahn
Starring: Peter Weller, Eric André, Sofia Boutella, Charlyne Yi, Steve Agee, Michael Therrialt, and Saad Siddiqui
For the closing episode of the anthology, director and co-writer Panos Cosmatos said that del Toro reached out amid lockdown and offered him a chance to work on Cabinet of Curiosities with “total creative freedom.” The result yielded “The Viewing,” which follows a group of four experts brought to view a unique creature held by a hermetic collector.
The inspiration for this fable came from one of the mystery genre’s most iconic sleuth shows, and the formula behind it: “I wanted to do a Scooby-Doo cartoon that was rendered in the style of an EC comic, where the Scooby episode looks gnarlier and more freaky and real and drawn by Basil Wolverton or somebody instead of Hanna-Barbera,” Cosmatos said.
For chaotic funny man Eric Andre, the messaging behind “The Viewing” is an example of being “in the eye of the beholder,” and hopes viewers can take away the themes on their own.
“On the surface, it’s a cool, cinematic sci-fi film with little retro influences,” Andre told Netflix. “But there’s like deeper, political undertones underneath. But I wouldn’t want to say what they are. I’d rather the viewer put it together. I know what they are for me.”
When Will Each Episode Come Out on Netflix?
Starting on Tuesday, October 25th, two new episodes will release each day until Friday, October 28th.
The schedule is as follows:
Night 1, a.k.a. “Scavengers” (October 25th): “Lot 36” and “Graveyard Rats.”
Night 2, a.k.a. “Lovecraft” (October 27th): “Pickman’s Model” and “The Dreams in the Witch House.”
Night 3, a.k.a. “Loners” (October 26th): “The Autopsy and “The Outside.”
Night 4, a.k.a. “Visitations” (October 28th): “The Viewing” and “The Murmuring.”
Cabinet of Curiosities: Everything We Know About Guillermo del Toro’s Netflix Anthology Series
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