Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities

Guillermo del Toros’s Cabinet of Curiosities Piques None

By Nancy Blobulax, Contributor

You know Twilight Zone? Remember Outer Limits? And then the 90’s version was even better? And Tales from the Darkside? Google it. 

I wanted Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities to be like those shows where each episode is mysterious, a little scary, and at least slightly surprising at the end.  But it’s not. Unless I’m missing whatever the hell he was trying to pull off, Cabinet of Curiosities is barely worthy of a CBS Wednesday night pensioner-time slot, way less Netflix. 

I forced myself through the entire first episode, trying to follow every dead end twist of the lamest script I’d seen that day. A shady character down on his luck is friends with a coworker he owes money to who’s mad about it, who inadvertently reveals hidden corridors in a self-storage facility containing satanic books and a monster who kills everyone.

In an admirable effort towards diversity and inclusion, a couple of elderly males, an immigrant done wrong and maybe a gay villain were thrown in. That’s as smart and entertaining as it ever gets. 

Give Cabinet of Curiosities a shot and see what you think. I couldn’t make it far enough into the second episode to notice any stars, but the ones in the first episode carried the maudlin cliche well enough that I finished it. 

TRY IT ANYWAY rating for Guillermo.