Television series
Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities
- Supernatural horror
- Dark fantasy
- Dip in and out
Eight unrelated horror shorts, each hand-picked and introduced by Guillermo del Toro like a ghoulish host presenting curiosities in a glass case. Different director, different genre, different rules every episode — cosmic dread one week, body horror the next, a Lovecraft adaptation after that. Gorgeous to look at, wildly inconsistent in quality, and best watched one story at a time rather than binged.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you enjoy horror anthologies where each self-contained tale arrives with a fresh director, a different mood and its own flavour of creeping dread.
Skip it if you want one sustained story or a steady build, since each roughly hour-long episode starts from scratch and some lean more on atmosphere than on scares.
What it asks of you: Eight self-contained episodes of about an hour each, so it asks you to reset your expectations every time rather than settle into a single world.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Black Mirror2011
Same anthology thrill of a fresh cast and premise every episode, but with sharper, more consistently brilliant writing and twists that actually land nearly every time.
But It swaps gothic dread for cold technological anxiety — less monsters and fog, more smartphones and dystopia.
Channel Zero2016
A genuinely underseen horror anthology, each season a single slow-burn creepypasta adaptation with real atmosphere, unsettling practical effects, and a nasty sense of dread.
But Only four seasons before cancellation, and it's trickier to find streaming — you may have to hunt.
The Haunting of Hill House2018
If Cabinet's gothic episodes were your favourites, this gives you that same haunted-house dread stretched into a full, emotionally devastating family saga with stunning long takes.
But It's one continuous story, not bite-sized tales — and it leans hard into grief and melodrama, not quick scares.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Black Sabbath1963
Del Toro has named Bava as a formative influence, and the format is nearly identical — a host figure curating short, self-contained tales of dread. This is where that idea started, decades before streaming made anthologies fashionable again.
Mario Bava's three-part Technicolor anthology, hosted by Boris Karloff himself, is one of the direct ancestors of everything Cabinet of Curiosities is doing — lush gothic dread compressed into ninety electric minutes.
But It's dated: some dubbing is clunky, pacing is very much of its era, and one segment is noticeably weaker than the other two.
People
Writing
- Guillermo del ToroCreator
Production
- Regina CorradoCo-Executive Producer
- Gary UngarExecutive Producer
- Guillermo del ToroExecutive Producer
- J. Miles DaleExecutive Producer
- Jeff AuthorsLine Producer
Recommended by
Warehouse 13, The Devil's Backbone, Creepshow, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Secret Life of Bees, American Horror Stories, Bite Size Terror, Mysteries at the Museum, Lore, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Mortuary Collection, Troll