Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities on Netflix is ​​way too gory

Rat-infested cemeteries, sinister paintings, witch rituals… Guillermo del Toro spares us nothing, opening the door of his Cabinet of Curiosities on Netflix. And for good reason: the master of fantasy and horror has called on 8 horrific filmmakers to accompany him in this heavy task. This anthology series, each episode of which is independent in the manner of black-mirrorwas one of our big expectations for the fall.

Especially since the Cabinet of Curiosities by Guillermo del Toro has an unusual device: while Netflix has a habit of putting entire seasons online at once, this series will be enjoyed over four days, between October 25 and 28. The opportunity to reinstate a kind of television appointment, with two episodes available each evening. If this first season falls right on Halloween, it finally turns out to be a little disappointment and did not really cause the horrific chills that we expected.

Enigmatic prologues

Guillermo del Toro is not, however, a novice when it comes to series. He was already at the helm of the disturbing The Strain (available on Disney+), but also from the animated trilogy Tales of Arcadia, again for Netflix. But with his Cabinet of Curiositiesthe Mexican filmmaker puts himself on stage for the first time in an unprecedented way.

In the manner ofAlfred Hitchcock presents or the Twilight Zone, Guillermo del Toro introduces each new story with a few mysterious phrases, with his iconic Spanish accent. These preambles, always successful, immediately plunge us into an enigmatic atmosphere, especially since they are followed by superb credits, probably one of the most inventive of recent years. The catchy music is sure to accompany you for days after you enter this Cabinet fascinating and surprising.

Concentrated gore or praise of slowness?

The problem is that the eight stories of this first season, they fail to mark us lastingly. The main culprit: a rather disturbing asymmetrical rhythm. If you hope for jump scaresinstead, be prepared to wait for the episodes to end for the real action to begin. On chapters of one hour, you can count approximately 40 minutes of slow dialogues. And when the time for action finally comes, an overdose of gore surges across the screen for the remaining 20 minutes.

There is no harm in playing on waiting and impatience, on the contrary, horror very often stems from suspense. But in this Cabinet of Curiosities, when finally something happens, our interest has already disappeared under a few layers of boredom. And above all, this concentrate of violence at the end of each episode falls like a hair on the soup, as if we absolutely had to catch up with the previous 40 minutes. It would be easier to accept this strange cadence if only the scenarios offered satisfactory conclusions. But except for a few episodes, like Whisper Where The prison of appearancesthe epilogues generally leave us hungry.

Realistic creatures

This tempo is all the more frustrating as the series is full of good ideas. It must be said that the eight directors who make up this first season are all big names in the genre, from Guillermo Navarro (the series Hannibal) to Vincenzo Natali (Cube) via Ana Lily Amirpour (The Bad Batch). Each of them develops its own singular style, even if certain episodes are full of so many references to other films and series, that we end up drowning in them. Guillermo del Toro’s touch shines through in particular in each chapter.

If the scenario writer did not carry out any episode, it is at the origin of one of the most successful aspects of the series: the design of the majority of the creatures. Of Hellboy to Pan’s Labyrinth Passing by The Shape of Water Where Pacific Rim, Guillermo del Toro has a passion for terrifying and larger than life monsters. He’s obviously having fun with it. Cabinet of Curiosities, visually stunning, in which he satisfies his passion for rats, oddly present in almost all episodes. Special mention to the witch of episode 6, absolutely splendid.

8 tales too uneven

Guillermo del Toro is also the author of two episodes, Batch 36 and Whisper. Respectively built around racism and depression, these two chapters are among the best of this first season. The series is never more relevant than when it uses horror as a pretext to denounce the real world, which is much more terrifying than any imaginary story. The fourth episode, The prison of appearancesthus takes literally the expression “to suffer to be beautiful” in a disconcerting ballet, halfway between shining and Edward Scissorhands.

On the distribution side, several well-known faces appeared throughout the season, such as those of Rupert Grint (Harry Potter, Servant), Ben Barnes (Shadow and Bone), Andrew Lincoln (The Walking Dead), or Kate Micucci (Raising Hope). Overall, the casting choice is impeccable, bringing to life some rather uninteresting characters on paper. But their performances unfortunately do not catch up with a lackluster season, made up of 8 very uneven tales. This Cabinet of Curiosities will still allow you to wait until the release of the highly anticipated PinocchioDel Toro version, available on December 9 on Netflix.

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