Cabinet of Curiosities Episode 1 Review “Lot 36”: The Secrets Of A Warehouse | Guillermo del Toro’s
Episode Title: Lot 36
Cast: Tim Blake Nelson, Sebastian Roché, Elpidia Carrillo
Director: Guillermo Navarro
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3/5 (three stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
In our review of the first episode of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, entitled Lot 36, we will see how the Netflix series presents itself to us viewers, with a first story that looks like a business card for the entire operation: it will be enough for making us fall in love with the project? Close the doors but keep your eyes and mind open. This is what the Netflix anthology series by Guillermo del Toro advises us to do, to better approach 8 episodes, each with its story and its protagonists, its mysteries, and its twists, full of horror and charm.
Taking full hands from the structure of cult TV series such as At the Borders of Reality, the Cabinet of Curiosities also aims to thrill viewers of the streaming platform to give them a scary bedtime story Indeed two. The distribution of the series itself is, especially for the Netflix model: two self-contained episodes a day linked only by a common theme, of varying duration (the shortest lasts less than 40 minutes, but most exceed an hour), for four days. A way to celebrate the arrival of the witches’ night in the company of different authors’ visions. Yes, because the series produced by del Toro makes use of eight directors known within the genre, each with their recognizable style, chosen specifically to stage the stories to be told in the best possible way.
Cabinet of Curiosities Episode 1 Review “Lot 36”: The Story
It is 1991 and the Gulf War has just broken out. An elderly man, while continuing his routine of ready meals and television for the umpteenth day, dies of a heart attack. His warehouse, lot 36 of the title, is auctioned and bought by Nick Appleton (Tim Blake Nelson), a Vietnam veteran man, unwilling to listen to others, with a racist anger that is not too repressed, and with a big debt problem. Nick buys warehouses and resells the valuables he finds inside him, but now the time to pay off his tormentor is running out. Lot 36 must contain valuables. And, whether he likes it or not, Nick will find them. These objects, however, will lead our protagonist to experience an unexpected situation, which not even his cynical sarcasm can face. As if that weren’t enough, old surveillance videos show the old warehouse owner taking strange actions before entering.
Cabinet of Curiosities Episode 1 Review “Lot 36” and Analysis
Since the first sequences, in which del Toro himself presents the project and the theme of the episode, the request addressed to the viewer is only one: let yourself be duped by the story, by the mystery and by the surprises that this has in store for you. It seems natural that the Cabinet of Curiosities wants to focus everything on a necessary and often overshadowed element, namely the spectator’s curiosity. There is no need to know the past of each character who appears (also because, with 40 minutes available, the characters are few in number and two-dimensional, supporting roles and not identities), and there is no need for subplots or excessive complications: the story Lotto 36 is simple and direct, it proceeds thanks to the desire to titillate the right amount of mystery, aware that the viewer will want to know which twist will close everything before the credits.
And perhaps this great confidence in one’s audience is all too well placed. Lot 36 does not shine particularly for its originality, nor for its staging. Guillermo Navarro’s work behind the camera reaches sufficiency but does not present great insights, limiting itself to replicating some well-established formulas. History builds what we could define as a good house of cards, where the gothic and mysterious atmosphere wins over events. Even the resolution, although coherent with the political intent also implied in the story (not too highlighted, it must be said) does not give that additional thrill that should be pure oxygen in an operation of this type. Because we have seen and continue to see similar stories, and even if we can limit ourselves to being curious.
We begin to go into the merits of the individual episodes with Lotto 36, an episode that inaugurates the anthological series. This specifically is directed by Guillermo Navarro (Del Toro’s historic director of photography), based on an original story by Guillermo Del Toro and scripted by Del Toro himself with Regina Corrado. A rather weak business card; or rather, poorly managed. We are talking about the shortest film of all those presented which has as its protagonist a man incapacitated by time, loss and loneliness due to gambling debts, who tries to enrich himself by buying boxes of people who are now dead or who can no longer afford the rent, hoping to find something that can turn his life around or, at least, repay the debts accumulated over the years.
The incipit of the film is very interesting and reminds us of the sacred rule of not touching spirit tables, invocation books and, above all, even if sceptical, not sticking your nose into the affairs of the evil one. But beyond superstition, Lot 36 is also a short metaphor about karma, about “not doing to others what you would not want them to do to you” and that a good deed today can always reserve something for the future. In short, the classic story is full of sub-texts and references. Although the atmospheres are the most suggestive, playing with very interesting macabre and distressing imagery, the narration is incomplete. The film never really takes off and right where it could have started, it ends.
Vague references also to greed, to the will of the human being too much, to never knowing how to stop even in the face of the evident limits of human nature. As we are seeing, the symbolic elements are certainly not lacking, the rest is lacking. You don’t have time to enter the story and be frightened by the images that appear in the credits, giving a real slap in the face to the viewer who is disappointed and even a little angry. The main problem, however, is the script. The direction is good it makes good use of the narrow and cramped locations and the impersonal and filthy setting, as well as the intermittent light. Tim Blake Nelson’s interpretation is striking, the actor holds up almost the whole story and it must be said that the design of the creature is very beautiful, in full Del Toro style. Apart from that, however, there is little else in Lot 36 that is memorable.
Cabinet of Curiosities Episode 1 Review “Lot 36”: The Last Words
The first episode of the anthological series Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities on Netflix entitled Lot 36 is a beginning that convinces in half: the atmosphere of gothic horror works, mysterious and capable of intriguing the viewer during its 40 minutes, but it is not very creative, leaving the viewer intrigued but not very impressed.
