November 1, 2022
Created by: Guillermo del Toro
This 8-episode horror anthology series was created by Oscar-award winning director Guillermo del Toro for Netflix. Each 1-hour episode was introduced by del Toro himself while taking an item out of the ornate titular cabinet. "Lot 36" and "The Murmuring" were based on short stories written by del Toro himself. The episodes were directed by various filmmakers, most notable among them were Jennifer Kent ("The Babadook"), Ana Lily Amirpour ("A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night") and Catherine Hardwicke ("Twilight').
The three best episodes for me were: 1. Ep. 3 "The Autopsy" (by David Prior): F. Murray Abraham played a doctor performing an autopsy on a man parasitized by an alien being. 2. Ep. 2 "The Graveyard Rats" (by Vincenzo Natali): David Hewlett played a grave robber who got deep in debt when rats invaded his territory. 3. Ep. 8 "The Murmuring" (by Jennifer Kent): Essie Davis and Andrew Lincoln play a couple of ornithologists in a strained marriage who stayed in an old haunted house while studying birds in a lonely island.
The other episodes also had interesting casting choices, like Tim Blake Nelson (in Ep. 1 "Lot 36), Dan Stevens (in Ep. 4 "The Outside), Ben Barnes and Crispin Glover (in Ep. 5 Pickman's Model), Rupert Grint (in Ep. 6 "Dreams in the Witch House"), Peter Weller and Sofia Boutella (in Ep. 7 "The Viewing"). Almost every episode featured a grotesque "monster" (from tentacled demons, to giant rodents, to lotion humanoids, to ugly witches, to meteor creatures), all of which are very typical of projects by del Toro. 7/10.
Created by: Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan
Dean and Nora Brannock (Ben Cannavale and Naomi Watts) decided to leave their home in New York City to move to a beautiful house on 657 Boulevard in suburban Westfield, New Jersey together with their two children. They did not get along with their eccentric neighbors like Pearl (Mia Farrow) and Mo (Margo Martindale) who disagreed with Brannock's modern renovations of the old house. Later, they began receiving a disturbing series of threatening letters from a mysterious person called "The Watcher."
While this was a fascinating 7-episode series to follow because we would all like to know who "The Watcher" was, it was not easy to watch because ALL the characters were unlikable. You could not feel any compassion for the Brannocks's predicament because they were so brash and quarrelsome. Even the local police chief Chamberland (Christopher MacDonald) and particularly realty agent Karen (Jennifer Coolidge) had annoyingly suspicious behavior. After all of the heightened suspense and multiple suspects, to say that the final episode was disappointing is an understatement. 6/10.
Created by: Mike Flanagan and Leah Fong
Ilonka (Iman Benson) was about to start college when she discovered that she had papillary thyroid carcinoma with lung metastasis. When she was declared terminal despite surgery, radiation and chemo, she decided to spend her final days in a hospice called Brightcliffe Home run by Dr. Georgina Stanton (Heather Langenkamp). There, she joined a group of seven other terminally-ill young adults who gathered to share disturbing stories every midnight. They took a pact that whoever went first should give a sign to the others about the beyond.
With the story of Ilonka and her search for Julia Jayne (a former patient at Brightcliffe who got totally well), each of the 10 episodes included a macabre story being told by the kids to each other. Anya (Ruth Codd) and Natsuki (Aya Furukawa) told very riveting stories which clearly reflected their own experiences of depression. It was interesting to see all the actors also portraying the bizarre characters in the stories. Ilonka's meetings with holistic medicine entrepreneur Shasta (Samantha Sloyan) in the woods led to occult rituals which eventually resulted in predictable outcomes. 7/10.
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