31 Days of Halloween: Even More TV

Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities, 2022, Netflix

This spread over a few nights and fills some gaps in our viewing. The series runs 8 episodes and we watched about two a night, thoroughly enjoying each one. Yes, we are already del Toro fans, but I am also a fan of anthology series, and these are all shot/done around the Toronto area, so we get a lot of familiar faces. AND del Toro worked with some of the most popular horror names currently in the business, as well as a boat load of familiar TV and movie faces, to create an incredible series. Unabashed adoration here, so I will do something I rarely do with TV write-ups, I will go over each episode.

Lot 36, Guillermo Navarro (Sleepy Hollow)

Nick (Tim Blake Nelson, Angel Has Fallen) is an asshole, in deep with his loan shark, looking to make some good money from a storage locker auction. What he gets was owned by some old guy who hid something weird behind all the old furniture and tchotchkes. The episode does a good job of establishing Nick, as surly and unlikeable, virulent to immigrants, and vitriolic even to those he has to work with. When he discovers a couple of books in an obviously magical table, his eyes light up with dollar signs at the suggestion the final volume could net him more than $100k. In tearing apart the locker, he ignores the warnings the buyer, who is assisting him, provides, even after finding a desiccated corpse in a hidden space at the end of the locker. Dude, when the creepy German occult expert tells you to not disturb the demon corpse trapped within a pentagram on the floor, listen to the fucker. Nick ignores him, disturbs the circle to get at the final book, and the tentacle-y, Cthulhian awakens to give chase, well, after eating the creepy German guy. 

The fun in this episode was in the minor details. The lights in the storage facility are on short timer, so Nick is constantly twisting dials, as he moves things out. So, when chased by a demon, we get to do a version of things-move-during-lightning-flashes via the timer lights. Everything that happens is entirely by the trope, but its all so well executed.

Graveyard Rats, Vincenzo Natali (Splice)

Salem, late-1800s; Massam ("Hey, its Rodney!", David Hewlett, Stargate: Atlantis) interrupts some grave robbers, not because he is a studious caretaker of a prestigious grave yard, but because they are interloping on his real job, which is taking the most choice pieces of jewelry from his charges. But Massam has been down on his luck of late, as rats have invaded his graveyard via subterranean tunnels and ... well, are stealing corpses. It sounds like a far fetched tale, but no sooner is he digging up the motherload of buried treasure than he sees the corpses being dragged off into Hell knows where. So, against everyone's (us) better judgement, he gives crawling chase.

Yeah, tunnels again; yay. But not just rats, but ... well, a rather large, blind, hairless rat, something best left fought by 1st level dungeon delvers, than a single man with a revolver. The crawling leads to falling, and Massam ends up in some deep, ancient chamber dedicated to an eldritch god. OK, so two episodes in, and two Lovecraftian references. But ancient chambers to ancient gods mean ancient treasure, but as all good D&D players know, ancient treasure protected by undead guardians!! "Mine! Mine!" the thing squawks as it gives chase, and soon Massam is running from TWO creatures better left to ... OK, 3rd-5th level adventurers. Just when he thinks he has escaped the things, he ends up in... standard karmic response, a buried coffin, and the rats he has been chasing now spill .... into him.

This was just fun. Hewlett embraces the maniacal character on a mission with glee. He does things only a man utterly desperate for shiny things that could net him coin does. Its creepy, full of claustrophobia and fear of unknown things in the dark.

The Autopsy, David Prior (The Empty Man)

Possibly the best of the lot, a story of eldritch creatures from beyond the stars instead of deep in the ground. After a mine explosion, Dr. Winters (F Murray Abraham, Mythic Quest) is brought in by his friend, Sheriff Craven (Glynn Turman, The Wire) to find out why the miner triggered the explosion. The miner is also tied to the disappearances and deaths of many other locals. Inside the miner is an alien parasite/symbiote that inhabits other bodies, using their senses, and eating them from within. And thus begins a battle of wills between creature and coroner.

At it's core, the episode is just a battle of wits, as the Dr. has to defeat the alien creature which wants to inhabit his body. The thing has already freaked him out, and restrained him naked to a table, as it abandons the decaying body of its last host. How will the Dr, who knows he is already dying of cancer, stop this evil thing from continuing. That is the core, but its the construction of the episode around it that wins. The place where Winters does his autopsy is not an ideal location, as Sheriff Craven has asked his friend to do this off the books, so as to foil the insurance company. The story leading up to the mine explosion was already sordid enough and Craven is fully invested in defeating this evil, before he knows what is going on, before he involves his friend. All this, along with a heavy dose of gorey body horror make the episode just fun.

The Outside, Ana Lily Amirpour (The Bad Batch)

Speaking of body horror. Ew, ick, icky! As a man who suffers from occasional flare ups of eczema, this episode just made me itch and cringe.

Stacey (Kate Micucci, Be Cool Scooby-Doo!) just wants to join the clique of "pretty" women at work, who gossip about everyone and spread hand lotion over themselves obscenely. Eww, ick. Stacey's more than a bit weird & wonky, not aware that taxidermy is not everyone's cup of tea, with a wobbly eye and big teeth. But her husband (Martin Starr, Silicon Valley) loves her, and their mundane suburban life, dearly. But nope, Stacey won't have it, as she wants it all, so when a late night TV ad shill (Dan Stevens, Legion) talks her into buying a truck load of previously mentioned hand lotion, she listens to the man on the TV talking to her, the man with the weird mix of European & American South accent and big ol white hair. BTW, by this point, Stacey is already having quite the allergic reaction to the cream, leaving her with bright red patches, peeling skin and an obsessive scritch scritch scritch. Eww, icky, ewww!

Apparently the hand lotion has its own agenda, which Stacey is buying into. I will leave it there, and I am itching already.

Pickman's Model, Keith Thomas (The Vigil)

Back to the HP Lovecraft influence, but more directly this time, adapting one of his short stories.

Its been decades since I read anything Lovecraft directly, but this one reminded me of why I soured quickly on his writing. Sure, the stuff is lush and creepy and full of world building, but its so very often just creepiness for the sake of creepiness, without much real point. It was a technique of pulp-ish spec fic writing back then, for the short stories to be much more about the author's flourid style than plot, but it just doesn't work as well for me.

Anywayz, Thurber (Ben Barnes, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian) is an early 20th century art, doing OK for himself, when weirdo Dicky Pickman (Crispin Glover, American Gods; channeling Burn Gorman) shows up. Almost instantly Thurber is drawn to Dicky's work, following him into a cemetery where Pickman sketches dead things, and almost instantly, beginning to feel the affect of being around Pickman. He's seeing weird things, and feeling overwhelming sensations of fear. Exposure to Pickman's work has unsettling affects. If this was a Call of Cthulhu game, Thurber would have failed his sanity check.

Years later, Thurber has divested himself of Pickman's unsettling influence, until the man insinuates himself back into Thurber's life. It leads to Pickman inviting Thurber into his sanctum, likely recognizing the affect it has had, and seeking a like soul, someone who sees the otherworldly in his horrific paintings for what they really are -- doorways to actual supernatural corrupting forces. Instead, Thurber shoots Pickman and escapes. Alas, his paintings were on display, and his family has seen them. End episode with classic utterly horrible ramifications.

I didn't like the episode much, despite really good production values. It just didn't seem to have any point other than depicting the affect that Lovecraftian mythos has on some. Obviously, not on all, for many had seen Pickman's work and just dismissed him, commenting on how weird he and his subject matter was. But Lovecraft was obsessed with the "descent into madness", and liked to explore it, but that's about it.

Dreams in the Witch House, Catherine Hardwick (Twilight)

Some of them stay with me, some of them just leave an impression. While I recall thoroughly enjoying this one, I must have been hitting the Old Man time of the night, as its fading already (ed. note: it could also be the fact that you are writing it long after that date at the top of the post, which is being retained for the sake of the 31 Days event?)

Director of Twilight you say? Not exactly an accolade in my books, but sure, accomplished director. Also, another Lovecraft short story, but lesser on the sanity checks.

It begins with Walter (Rupert Grint, Harry Potter & the ...) and Epperly (Daphne Hoskins, The Baby-Sitters Club) as kids (sorry, what is her name again?). She is very ill, and he is the doting twin. She dies, appears briefly before him as a ghost and then is dragged by vines into some strange forest. And thus begins Walter's quest to find out what happened to his sister.

In most stories, this would mean finding out about some sinister thing that their family had been wound up in, something that ended with Epperly being relegated to a woody purgatory, instead of the afterlife. But being Lovecraft, it just has Walter seeking forbidden knowledge, seeking out charlatan mediums and the like, until he imbibes a narcotic that lets him enter the forest, the Forest of Lost Souls. He does find his sister, but is torn away before he can "save" her. He returns with a bit of her dress.

Also note an encounter with a painter (Tenika Davis, Hudson & Rex) obsessed with a witch's house, which felt like a straying from the ghost story, but does find its way back to the main plot, when on a second journey to the Forest, Walter sees her painting and states to him, he is not supposed to be there. But soon after, zooooop, back to the real world. Without any further funds to continue his journey to save Epperly, he seeks out the painter.

So, the painter lives in an old house that was owned by a persecuted witch, who was killed by whose body was never found. Since moving in, the painter has been haunted by visions. Walter decides that if he stays in the house, maybe he can once again make contact with the Forest and save Epperly. 

The climax and conclusion are rather chaotic involving an undead witch, resurrection, sacrifice, foretold rituals, the bonds between twins and a human faced rat (DJ Qualls, The Core). It all looked spectacular, but didn't really stick with me.

The Viewing, Panos Cosmatos (Mandy) 

Ouch. My mind got fucked.

This was one weird, brilliant, messed up episode severely lacking any point beyond experience, but was so utterly fucking enjoyable in how it played out, I forgive it entirely.

Its the 70s. A bunch of famous people are invited by an eccentric billionaire to his famous concept abode, the Sandpiper House. They have no idea why they are going, nor why they were invited, but each considers it the greatest opportunity. There is the novelist Guy Landon (Steve Agee, Peacemaker), the astrophysicist Charlotte Xie (Charlyne Yi, House MD), medium/psychic/charlatan Targ Reinhard (Michael Therriault, Locke & Key) and music producer / musician Randall Roth (Eric André, 2 Broke Girls). Each is famous and each understands how famous the other is. 

At the incredible house, all angles and colours (no pink or purple though!), they are greeted by Dr. Zahn (Sofia Boutella, Star Trek Beyond) and Lionel Lassiter (Peter Weller, Star Trek Into Darkness), their hosts. Lassiter has the perfect gift for each of them, seeking to set them at ease, and then dives into a monologue about how they are about to experience the greatest of experiences, because of who each of them is, will help him interpret it via their unique perspectives. The dialogue coming out of Peter Weller's mouth is riveting and steeped in dank bullshit, while Dr. Zahn seduces them with her confidence and giant bowl of cocaine & custom designed additive. She is seeking to open minds.

To what, you ask? Well, a freaky looking rock from space. Its entirely impenetrable, physically or any scan on the know spectrum, but obviously not a natural geographic formation. And obviously Lassiter knows something about it, for he has asked these others to come into its influence. Annnnd, well almost instantly, that doesn't go well. Faces melt, heads explode and the thing cracks open, spewing forth goo. Xie and Landon escape, tearing off into the night while the goo forms into a creature that also escapes into the drainage tunnels that surround LA.

End Scene.

Fuckity, it was trippy. But when is Cosmatos not? Not only does he embrace a 70s aesthetic, but he also triple-down'd on the drug & alien mind induced altered reality feel. The dialogue was incredible, every character chewing on their scenes, convincing us that they are intelligent people, even if some were more than a bit of a DB. And the visuals! I would love to see a Cosmatos attempt at a space opera.

And to end things off, a thoughtful, pensive ghost story...

The Murmuring, Jennifer Kent (The Babadook)

Kent (director Kent, not this-blog Kent) brings back Essie Davis (Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries) to star in an incredibly well-done, if not unfamiliar story of a couple dealing with the ever present grief of losing a child, and the ghosts in a house they visit. Nancy (Davis) and Edgar Bradley (Andrew Lincoln, Love, Actually) are renowned in ornithological circles for their knowledge of the Dunlin, a migratory bird known for its murmurations, those eerie formations of bird flocks that swoop & dive, creating mesmerizing cloud-like formations. They take an opportunity to study the birds in one of their migratory stops, on a small island off the coast of Nova Scotia, in a vacant house storied by tragedy. But despite their focus on their work, the not equally shared expressions of grief threaten to derail their marriage.

This is a gentle episode, challenging and pain filled. Its a familiar story where one member of a couple deals with her grief differently from the other, leaving them at odds. Even if this was current days, most couples don't well communicate their troubles, and the addition of ghostly figures doesn't help Edgar further his support of his wife's torments. In the end, she has to deal with it head long, on her own, but comes out stronger on the other side, for all concerned, even the dead. As the cliche goes, Davis is masterful in her depiction of this woman, as she was in The Babadook, even considering how underwhelmed I was with that movie, one cannot deny she was grand. In the end, good performances, a tightly told story and eerie, otherworldly real-world ties to ghosts (I once spent an afternoon, watching mumurations over Toronto's waterfront, feeling like I was witnessing something supernatural) and flocks of birds.