Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities: Graveyard Rats

Netflix’s new horror anthology series, Cabinet of Curiosities, has each episode being introduced by creator Guillermo del Toro akin to the old Twilght Zone and Night Gallery series that had Rod Sterling introducing each story.  The second episode is entitled “Graveyard Rats”, and could be taken literally or figuratively referring to the actual rats that factor into the story, or the grave-robbers who are preying on and benefitting from the deceased.

In Salem, Massachusetts during the early 20^th century, graveyard caretaker, Masson (David Hewlett) catches two grave robbers ransacking a corpse.  He dispels them and then begins looting the grave himself.  We soon find out that he is in deep debt and has been attempting to rob the graves of those he has been charged with protecting, but rats have been stealing the bodies first.  Given one week to come up with the money, Masson discovers that a very wealthy man is being buried with some priceless artifacts and sees this as his big chance to score, if he can dig up the grave before the rats do.  This leads Masson down a dark hole…quite literally! He sees the rats carting the body through a narrow tunnel and follows.  This leads him to a battle with a giant rat and a demon worshipping zombie.  Will Masson survive or will he succumb to the zombie and giant rats?  Watch and find out!

Episode two is written by Vincenzo Natali based on a short story by Henry Kuttner and was directed by Vincenzo Natali.  David Hewlett does a great job as Masson.  His character is a bit “greasy” like a snake oil salesman, but likeable at the same time.  He is doing something wrong out of desperation, but he also doesn’t seem to be sorry for his moral transgressions.  The dialogue was well written, but I feel like more emphasis could have been placed on explaining what was happening.  What created the giant rat? Was it a byproduct of “The Black Church” and the demonic worship from centuries before?  The story seemed to jump from “Giant Rat” to “Demonic Zombie” pretty quickly and with very little explanation. If the episode seems a little familiar, there was a segment in Trilogy Of Terror II that had rats doing pretty much what they do in this episode. That being said, it was still a great episode with good production value and a good story.