Ken and Robin Consume Media: Every Cabinet of Curiosities Episode, Plus a Pinnacle Mystery and an Unthrilling Thriller

November 1st, 2022 | Robin

Ken and Robin Consume Media is brought to you by the discriminating and good-looking backers of the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff Patreon. Each week we provide capsule reviews of the books, movies, TV seasons and more we cram into our hyper-analytical sensoriums. Join the Patreon to help pick the items we’ll talk about in greater depth on a little podcast segment we like to call Tell Me More.

The Pinnacle

Tour de Force (Fiction, Christianna Brand, 1955) When a murderer kills a retiring woman on a Mediterranean package tour, fellow tourist Inspector Cockrill must solve the crime before the local authorities railroad someone. All Brand’s strengths – caustic characterization, lapidary scene-setting, fair-play but blindsiding plots, and occasional needle-fine prose – turn diamantine under increasing pressure in this, well, tour de force. –KH

Recommended

“The Autopsy,” Episode 3, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities (Television, US, Netflix, David Prior, 2022) Terminally ill coroner (F. Murray Abraham) defends humanity against the alien parasite occupying the body of his latest subject. Gripping, revolting adaptation of a Michael Shea story brilliantly finds a visual language for its literally interior action.—RDL

Easily the best of the series, combining a perfectly creepy setup, lowering dark backstory, and a great payoff. That’s all Shea, but Abraham carries the role effortlessly and Prior masters both framing and pacing throughout. –KH

To avoid the standard review of any anthology series, which is “Uneven anthology series in which the highlights are X, Y, and Z,” I am reviewing the episodes of GdT’s CoC separately. Because that’s how much I care about you, the reader. By the way did anyone else notice how much the logo recalls the Call of Cthulhu logo when shrunk down to thumbnail size?—RDL

To avoid choking this Consume Media with a double helping of grue, I’m piggy-backing on Robin’s reviews. Where my ratings differ I mention them in my comments.—KH

“Graveyard Rats,” Episode 2, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities (Television, US, Netflix, Vincenzo Natali, 2022) Weaselly, graverobbing cemetery custodian (David Hewlett) battles prodigious rodents for the treasure buried with a prestigious new arrival. My favorite of the season shows off Natali’s mastery of the plastic elements of action horror and a deliciously big performance from Hewlett, who makes us both laugh and feel for his outwardly loathsome character.—RDL

A mediocre but effective Henry Kuttner story given real brio here, supercharging its EC Comics plot with excellent action beats interspersed with genuine panic and squick. –KH

“The Murmuring”, Episode 8, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities (Television, US, Netflix, Jennifer Kent, 2022) Grief-stricken ornithologist (Essie Davis) on a research trip with her scholarly partner and neglected husband (Andrew Lincoln) encounters the ghosts of another family in the old Cape Breton house they’re staying in. Dramatic conflict between nuanced characters lends depth to a haunted house tale, based on a story by del Toro.—RDL

Unappealing, emotionally stunted protagonist does little to awaken this potentially very creepy setup, and the birds felt both over- and under-utilized. The tired Ghost Whisperer payoff dropped it to Okay for me. –KH

“The Outside,” Episode 4, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities (Television, US, Netflix, Ana Lily Amirpour, 2022) Yearning for the acceptance of her status-conscious fellow bank clerks, a shy taxidermy enthusiast (Kate Micucci) ignores the pleas of her sensible cop husband (Martin Starr) for the supernatural allure of an infomercial skin lotion. Satirical horror with a great final scene from Micucci offers a needed tonal contrast to the rest of the series, and a refreshing woman’s vantage on social terror. Original story by Emily Carroll.—RDL

Another EC Comics style story, the joke too drawn out to retain its effectiveness despite a game try by Micucci. At a tight half hour it would have been better than Good. –KH

Good

“Pickman’s Model” Episode 5, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities (Television, US, Netflix, Keith Thomas, 2022) Horrific visions plague a patrician art student (Ben Barnes) when he is exposed to the lifelike nightmarish paintings of colleague Richard Pickman (Crispin Glover.) Expands the setup-punchline structure of the HPL story to focus on the narrator’s descent into reality horror.—RDL

If you’re going to pad out Lovecraft’s snappiest, punchiest tale, try not to erase the story by so doing. Thurber and Pickman’s relationship makes far less sense in this version, and we lose the ghouls to boot. Barely Okay. –KH

Okay

Fulci For Fake (Film, Italy, Simone Scafidi, 2019) Documentary profile of director Lucio Fulci connects the tough blows of his private life to the reality-defying horrors of his key works. Instead of clearing the rights to excerpts from the films, this uses a labored framing device in which an actor prepares to play Fulci by conducting the talking heads interviews.—RDL

“The Viewing”, Episode 7, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities (Television, US, Netflix, Panos Cosmatos, 2022) Wealthy weirdo (Peter Weller) invites an unlikely cast of supposedly kindred spirits to his brutalist chic manor to see a strange artifact. Cosmatos dips back into his 70s revivalist vibe for a weird tale in which the horror plays as perfunctory afterthought to banter between its eccentric characters.—RDL

Robin nails it here. I’ll add that a lot of the details seemed weirdly like adolescent tryhard fixations, not 70s billionaire weirdness. Loved the Hunger-style lighting, though. –KH

Not Recommended

“Dreams in the Witch House”, Episode 6, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities (Television, US, Netflix, Catherine Hardwicke, 2022) Hoping to contact the twin sister who died as a child, an obsessed parapsychologist (Rupert Grint) moves into a house haunted by a the spirit of an evil witch. The script tackles the known problems of Lovecraft adaptation by throwing in a fistful of new elements, none of which particularly agree with one another, much less the original story.—RDL

I have a lot of respect for Hardwicke, and she put a surprisingly vibrant paint job on this lemon of a script. By the end, I almost enjoyed the incoherence and almost overlooked the Mixmaster treatment of HPL. Okay, as in “better than Curse of the Crimson Altar.” –KH

“Lot 36”, Episode 1, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities (Television, US, Netflix, Guillermo Navarro, 2022) Surly racist antiques wholesaler (Tim Blake Nelson) gets more than he bargained for when he purchases the contents of a storage unit belonging to a rich creep. Rote tale of supernatural punishment based on a del Toro story that centers his obvious moralism.—RDL

Super promising premise becomes yet another adequate EC Comics story. If the demon had been a skoosh better or creepier or anything, my rating might be higher than Okay. –KH

Ire-Inspiring

Pacifiction (Film, France/Spain/Germany/Portugal, Albert Serra, 2022) De Roller (Benoît Magimel), the High Commissioner of French Polynesia, slouches and bleats through a few days in which the French government might be resuming nuclear testing. Serra doesn’t so much deconstruct the political thriller here as dump all the parts out on the beach and ignore them while somehow making a film shot in Tahiti look ugly and boring. Nearly three hours later, it turns out that De Roller was useless and nothing we saw mattered; Serra manages to be both facile and lugubrious. –KH