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Every Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities Episode Ranked Worst to Best

Some are better than others, but they're all entertainingly creepy

liam-mathews
Liam Mathews
Guillermo del Toro, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities

Guillermo del Toro, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities

Netflix

In the new Netflix horror series Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities, the Oscar-winning director presents eight macabre episodes he curated from some of the genre's most talented writers and directors. To varying degrees, the episodes all share del Toro's signature aesthetic of old-fashioned storytelling and scary, gory monsters made by human hands instead of computers as much as possible. And since it's an anthology series, some episodes are better than others. 

If you have a limited amount of time and want to know which episodes to watch and which to skip, or just want to compare your own personal preferences to someone else's, here's our ranking of all eight Cabinet of Curiosities episodes, from worst to best. And "worst" is a relative term; most of them are very good. The gap in quality between each of the top five episodes is very small, and all of them have something worthwhile about them. Guillermo del Toro did a good job putting them together. 


8. "Dreams in the Witch House" 

Daphne Hoskins and Rupert Grint, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities: Dreams in the Witch House

Daphne Hoskins and Rupert Grint, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities: Dreams in the Witch House

Ken Woroner/Netflix

Director: Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight director)

One of two H.P. Lovecraft adaptations in the collection, "Dreams in the Witch House" deviates substantially from the plot and spirit of the infamous horror master's original story, to unsuccessful effect. Rupert Grint plays a man who's devoted his life to finding a way to contact his twin sister who died when they were children. When he finally does, it doesn't work out how he wanted it to. This entry is the weakest of the bunch simply because it's boring, with a conventional, slow-moving plot that doesn't try very hard to hook the audience. The rat with the face of a man is pretty freaky, though. [Trailer]

7. "Lot 36" 

Tim Blake Nelson and Sebastian Roche, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities: Lot 36

Tim Blake Nelson and Sebastian Roche, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities: Lot 36

Ken Woroner/Netflix

Director: Guillermo Navarro (Pan's Labyrinth cinematographer)

Almost invariably, Cabinet of Curiosities episodes start out slow and talky before getting to the horror. At 46 minutes, "Lot 36" is one of the shortest entries of the season, and yet it feels like one of the longest because it spends so much of its runtime setting up the last few moments. And some of the stuff it sets up, it doesn't even pay off (Why was the guy hopping like a bunny before he entered his storage locker?). Tim Blake Nelson gives a strong performance as a racist, misanthropic Vietnam vet who buys a storage unit at auction in order to sell its contents and gets more than he bargained for in the form of a demon, but his character is so unpleasant that 46 minutes is a really long time to spend with him. [Trailer]

6. "The Autopsy" 

F. Murray Abraham, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities: The Autopsy

F. Murray Abraham, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities: The Autopsy

Ken Woroner/Netflix

Director: David Prior (The Empty Man director)

An overly long preamble and a confusing plot keep "The Autopsy" from being as good as it could be. It's very good once it gets going, but it takes a while to get there. F. Murray Abraham stars as a medical examiner who's forced to think quickly and act violently when an undead creature reanimates on his autopsy table. It's one of the scarier and more gruesome entries in the set, and has a handful of haunting images that stick with you after it's over. [Trailer 

5. "The Outside" 

Kate Micucci, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities: The Outside

Kate Micucci, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities: The Outside

Ken Woroner/Netflix

Director: Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night director)

This satirical riff on the evils of the beauty industry stars Kate Micucci as a plain, socially awkward woman who wants to be conventionally attractive like the vapid gossips she works with, much to the chagrin of her husband (Martin Starr), who loves her as she is. In an effort to take charge of her life, she buys a skin cream that changes her in unexpected ways. It's a darkly funny and charmingly quirky effort from director Ana Lily Amirpour, who uses lenses and camera angles that distort the image in entertaining ways, and writer Haley Z. Boston, who's establishing herself as a leading purveyor of body horror (she also wrote the most memorably off-putting episode of the horror limited series Brand New Cherry Flavor). [Trailer]

4. "The Viewing" 

Peter Weller, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities: The Viewing

Peter Weller, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities: The Viewing

Ken Woroner/Netflix

Director: Panos Cosmatos (Mandy director)

Panos Cosmatos is one of the most visually distinctive directors working today (if you haven't seen Mandy, you gotta!!!), and his unique style is all over this hypnotic stoner gem. It's 1979, and an enigmatic rich man (Peter Weller) has summoned four seemingly disparate people — an astrophysicist (Charlyne Yi), a novelist (Steve Agee), a TV psychic (Michael Therriault), and a music producer (Eric André) — to examine a mysterious rock that has come into his possession. The story never really comes together and the ending will leave you saying "that's it?," but the lighting, set design, and overall bad-trippy atmosphere is so powerful that it doesn't matter too much that the plot takes a backseat. 

3. "Graveyard Rats" 

David Hewlett, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities: Graveyard Rats

David Hewlett, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities: Graveyard Rats

Ken Woroner/Netflix

Director: Vincenzo Natali (Splice director)

"Graveyard Rats" is the most straight-up fun episode in the collection. David Hewlett stars as a cemetery caretaker who attempts to rob graves but is constantly thwarted by rats that pick over the bodies before he can get to them. While trying to steal a very valuable item from a new grave, the man follows the rats down into their hideout, where he meets a giant rat and an undead ghoul that's very protective of its treasures. It's a claustrophobic horror adventure with not one but two good monsters, some thrilling tension, and a wicked sense of humor. And the ending is a hoot. [Trailer]

2. "Pickman's Model" 

Ben Barnes, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities: Pickman's Model

Ben Barnes, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities: Pickman's Model

Ken Woroner/Netflix

Director: Keith Thomas (Firestarter director)

The collection's other H.P. Lovecraft adaptation is much better than the other. While it also diverges a bit from the plot of the short story on which it's based, it keeps what's important, and it's true to the serious, cosmically overwhelming spirit of Lovecraft's writing. What's important is that Pickman is an artist who paints images that are so otherworldly and demonic that they make the viewer go insane, and he's not imagining the things he paints, he really sees them, because they're really there. Crispin Glover is perfectly cast as Pickman, even with the crazy early-20th-century New England accent he does. But the main reason why it's ranked so high is that it has a more consistent pace than the rest of the talky, backloaded episodes. In "Pickman's Model," the horror comes early and often. [Trailer]

1. "The Murmuring"

Essie Davis, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities: The Murmuring

Essie Davis, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities: The Murmuring

Netflix

Director: Jennifer Kent (The Babadook director)

The final episode of the collection and the one least like any of the others is (perhaps not coincidentally?) the one that stands out the most. The haunted house-as-metaphor for grief has been done a million times, but writer-director Jennifer Kent finds a unique take on the setup with this beautifully shot and acted ghost story that's based on a short story by del Toro himself. Essie Davis and Andrew Lincoln play married ornithologists living in an isolated lakehouse in 1951. Something has happened that has put an emotional wall between them, and then she becomes fixated on uncovering the dark history of the house's previous occupants. It's scary in a less gory and more atmospheric way than the other episodes, and Davis and Lincoln's performances are magnificent — especially Davis, who inhabits the character so fully that she really sounds like she's from 1951. Of all the episodes, it's the one that could stand alone as a film of its own with a little bit of expansion. 

Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities

1 Season NETFLIX
A horror anthology series from the Oscar-winning director.
72   Metascore
2022 TVMA Horror