Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities: Pickman’s Model

In the fifth episode we delve into a story by horror icon and legend H.P. Lovecraft with Pickman’s Model.  Originally published in the October issue of 1927s Weird Tales. This is not the first time that an anthology series has adapted the infamous work.  Night Gallery also produced an episode based on the short story in December of 1971. Earlier that year, Marvel Comics adapted the story for the Tower of Shadows #9 comic book and reprinted it in Masters of Terror in 1975.

Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet Of Curiosities. Ben Barnes as Thurber in episode “Pickman’s Model” of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet Of Curiosities. Cr. Ken Woroner/Netflix © 2022

In the early 1900s, Thurber (Ben Barnes), a Bostonian student at Miskatonic University, meets Richard Upton Pickman (Crispin Glover), a very talented but tortured painter whose art is horrific, depicting grotesque scenes.  He is a distant relative of a woman who was burned at the stake by Cotton Mather.  Thurber is adversely affected by his artwork causing him to see hallucinations.  Soon afterwards, Pickman disappears.  Years pass and it is now 1926 and Thurber is married with a son when Pickman returns to town and the terror starts up all over again endangering the relationship with his wife and son.  Thurber has a final showdown with Pickman and learns the exact meaning of the line, “I paint what I see”.  With Pickman out of his life forever, Thurber finally believes he has put his horrific past behind him, but his nightmare has only just begun!

Adapted for the series by Lee Patterson and directed by Keith Thomas, the episode uses some wonderful visuals to depict the gruesome artwork.  It is hard to tell if the effects were computer generated or if it was done practically using camera angles and special lenses.  Accompanied by subtle background noises of torture and screams the production really captured the distorted souls trapped within the canvas.  Ben Barnes does an adequate job as Thurber, but I was not impressed with Crispin Glover, who used what I believe was supposed to be a Boston accent but sounded like a mash between the accents of Ireland, New York and Massachusetts all fighting to get out.  His speech was also unnaturally deliberate which did give him a creepy vibe, but it was a little over the top. In addition there is some unnecessary gore in one scene which felt like it was put in just to satisfy that percentage of the audience who needs to see a head sawed off.  It wasn’t a bad episode and the visual aesthetics were quite wonderful. The ending, although predictable was a nice twist.