Cabinet of Curiosities Episode 5 “Pickman’s Model” Review: Lovecraft Story And Respects Its Classicism And Style | Guillermo del Toro’s

Cast: Ben Barnes, Crispin Glover, Oriana Leman

Director: Keith Thomas

Streaming Platform: Netflix

Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3/5 (three stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

As we’ll see in our Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities Episode 5 “Pickman’s Model” review, the adaptation of Lovecraft’s short story directed by Keith Thomas delivers exactly that kind of vibe: gothic, mysterious, and classic. A tribute that, however, surprises less than expected. The third day of the anthological series curated by Guillermo del Toro is dedicated to the stories of one of the best pens in horror literature. A true cornerstone of the genre such as HP Lovecraft, a writer who in his short stories was able to charm the reader by telling the fears, monsters and the most unspeakable invisible.

Already appeared in another American anthological series, Mistero in Galleria, signed by Rod Sterling, it seems almost a double homage in finding Pickman’s Model also in Cabinet of Curiosities, whose structure pays homage to those milestones of the 1950s seriality and Seventies. The third tranche is dedicated to Lovecraft’s short stories, starting with Pickman’s model directed by Keith Thomas. And we also start with another of the most interesting episodes of the eight presented in Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities.

Cabinet of Curiosities Episode 5 “Pickman’s Model” Review: The Story

Draw what you see. It is the main teaching, the mantra that William Thurber, a student of fine arts with an innate talent for drawing, follows slavishly at the school, proving to be one of the best among the pupils. Things are bound to change with the arrival of a new student, Richard Pickman. With a mysterious and silent air, Pickman immediately stands out during a drawing lesson. Instead of the model in front of him, he begins to paint something more macabre, an aspect that characterizes all his works by him. By establishing a particular relationship with him, Thurber will feel a strange confusion in observing Pickman’s paintings. Could they hide a dark secret from the eyes of men? Pickman’s power is tied to the imagination or he too, in an unexpected and incredible way,

Cabinet of Curiosities Episode 5 “Pickman’s Model” Review: And Analysis

Catapulting us to the beginning of the twentieth century, Pickman’s model belongs to a genre of horror in which the construction of tension takes place slowly, dosed in a millimetric way, to make the 63 minutes of duration very dense. It is the rhythm of the literary tale, which pays homage to the most classic way of staging stories of this type: taking your time, playing above all with photography and the atmosphere, and letting the protagonists gradually realize the truth. A choice that appears to be a clear homage not only to Lovecraft himself, where the creation of a mood is preferred instead of describing events in detail (and which in the works of the Providence writer is equivalent to the use of the first person as narrator, often unable to find the right words or narrate the aesthetic details of what he is observing), and a homage to a rather classic form of cinematic storytelling.

But it is also a choice that, however fascinating and suitable to the subject may be, risks averting the curiosity of the viewer, who will struggle to find a strong, even emotional bond with the plot told. Just as Lovecraft has always been skilled at depicting the great divinities of the past, the presences that go beyond the veil and represent the fiercest impulses of the human being, Keith Thomas is equally good at rendering all this on screen, in a real nightmare with open eyes, between obsessions, frenzy and gruesome scenarios and visions. A return to the 1920s in a picturesque, Gothic and Baroque key. Macabre scenarios where the mind is severely tested, broken, divided between reason and terror and where the true face of the human being far surpasses any kind of horror imaginable. From directing to writing, through acting and setting, Pickman’s model is the most terrifying, Halloween-esque and perfectly in-mood episode in Del Toro’s anthology.

Directed by Keith Thomas, author of a good debut in the feature film which is The Vigil, seems to want to hide within a classic story, resulting in mostly functional than personal. The result is an episode that breathes Lovecraft’s atmosphere but is far too static and canonical. Without strong visual ideas (and when you focus on CGI and making certain horrors explicit you also lose the charm of the dark) and with a cast that doesn’t particularly shine, Pickman’s model shows the downside of a project that is aimed to fascinate and keep the spectators busy for several days inside the platform of the great N. The result, however, is the picture of a typical student, certainly capable, but far from being able to be proudly exhibited in an art gallery, how should this be Cabinet of Curiosities?

Cabinet of Curiosities Episode 5 “Pickman’s Model” Review: The Last Words

The fifth episode of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, entitled Pickman’s Model, is based on a Lovecraft story and respects its classicism and style. Perhaps too much, resulting in a rather impersonal homework that struggles to involve the viewer despite the premises. With a subdued pace, it is an episode that does not fully convince. On the other hand, adopting not very personal and not very innovative solutions, Pickman’s Model turns out to be a work that is observed with the right interest, but which, once passed to the next painting, has already been forgotten.