How the Twilight director tackled Lovecraft for Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities

Catherine Hardwicke has some experience with literary horror adaptations, having previously directed the first Twilight movie. But for her contribution to the new Netflix anthology series Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities, Hardwicke tackled another iconic horror writer: H.P. Lovecraft.

Lovecraft is a legendarily verbose writer, and his stories (such as "Dreams in the Witch House," the namesake of Hardwicke's episode) often feature protagonists struggling with psychological horror. But strangely enough, there were similarities between adapting him and Stephanie Meyer.

"Lovecraft's story really only takes place in this one house, and it's very internal," Hardwicke previously told EW. "To make it more cinematic, we expanded on that and added these other layers so that the story is expressed in emotions, not just words. We had to do the same kind of thing with Twilight, since Stephanie Meyer wrote it very internally, based on what Bella was thinking. I was like, I want to see what it means to have a vampire boyfriend — or in this case, what it means to fight with a witch!"

Each installment of Cabinet of Curiosities is helmed by a different filmmaker. Hardwicke says creator Guillermo del Toro was happy to offer any assistance needed, while also letting the directors put their own marks on the series.

"The cool thing about Guillermo is he really wanted to give the directors ownership and make us feel like, 'Yeah man, I get to do some crazy s—,'" Hardwicke says. "So then I got to put my brain, my heart, my soul, my blood, and my sweat into it. That's what we like to do. We don't wanna feel like robots who just took orders from somebody. So he really made an effort to do that, and he was supportive of everything that I came up with. It was all additive, you know? That was really cool. But then he was there to help us in areas that we're not as much of an expert in as he is, like the creatures."

Netflix Keziah Mason (Lize Johnston) in 'Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities' on Netflix.

There were two main creatures to design for this story. Lovecraft is best known for the cosmic horror of his Cthulhu Mythos, which depict monstrous ancient gods known as the Great Old Ones. "Dreams in the Witch House" is part of that canon, but its monsters are more down-to-earth. Upon moving into the titular creepy house, protagonist Walter Gilman (Rupert Grint) soon encounters the undead witch Keziah Mason (Lize Johnston) and her familiar, the humanlike rat Brown Jenkin (DJ Qualls).

Rats recur as a creature of horror in Lovecraft's writing (check out "The Rats in the Walls" this Halloween season if you never have), but Brown Jenkin is another level. Lovecraft described the latter as having "long hair and the shape of a rat, but its sharp-toothed, bearded face was evilly human while its paws were like tiny human hands." Del Toro helped Hardwicke design that evil combination, while Qualls brought it to frightening life.

"He's got these fantastic artists who do conceptual stuff," Hardwicke says of Del Toro's operation. "So I gave a lot of ideas to them and we would brainstorm, me and the artist, and go to the sculptors' studio. We tried things on, like fur and everything. Then [Guillermo] would look at everything too, and either sign off on it or come up with an even more crazy-ass idea: 'I love the rat. Let's give him some more boils and pus!' I would be like, 'Yeah, that's awesome.'"

As for Qualls, Hardwicke says, "He is a very expressive actor and when he found out he was gonna play this rat, he went and studied some rats. His friend has rats in Vancouver, so he was just watching all their movements and everything. And then his rat was actually from Shakespearean times, so the rat kind of speaks in Shakespearean English. He's very good at voices, you know? So he was able to imbue this rat with all these characteristics. The fact that you have a human doing this, and then appliances go on to him, means you can use his very expressive face. I really love that."

Brown Jenkin is one thing, but his witchy mistress is even more fearsome. "Our witch is played by this beautiful woman, Lize Johnston," Hardwicke says. "She's very tall and has great movement. So you have this whole costume that comes alive by a person actually having to move in it. That's just another level that you don't get in CGI."

Ken Woroner/Netflix Rupert Grint as Walter Gilman in 'Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities' on Netflix.

Speaking of movement, the most memorable sequence in Hardwicke's Twilight is the game of vampire baseball. The director was reminded of that scene, which she still calls "the most fun sequence I've ever directed," when conducting some spooky choreography for "Dreams in the Witch House."

"We do have a lot of really interesting movements in this one," Hardwicke says. "Our star Rupert Grint is so fun to work with and so good — he just draws you in and you believe everything he does. But he had some crazy body movements, so we had a very interesting choreographer from Portugal help him work with his distortions and stuff."

One way that Hardwicke and Watkins expanded "Dreams in the Witch House" was by rooting it in family. In Lovecraft's story, Walter is a lone student obsessed with magical mysteries. In Hardwicke's adaptation, that obsession stems from the childhood death of Walter's twin sister Epperley (Daphne Hoskins). This is fitting, because there was a family connection behind the scenes as well.

"There's a painter in the story, and they're actually my sister's paintings," Hardwicke reveals. "She's an incredible painter, and she did these very witchy, strange, triangular paintings that help you put the puzzle together. So that's very rad. In some of my movies, you'll see her paintings sneak in. But this was especially right because, I mean, she's literally painted rats before. I told Guillermo, 'She does paintings of pack rats and skeletons and weird s—.' He was like, 'Okay, she's pretty perfect.'"

All episodes of Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities are streaming now on Netflix.

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