Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities

This collection of original and adapted stories doesn’t feature a single dud, delivering frights, heartache and insanity in excitingly surprising fashion. So electric and inspired are these hour-long episodes that you’ll wish there were twenty more on the way. ... The series is at once cohesive and diverse, tilling familiar soil in order to unearth a bounty of uncanny riches.

The attention to detail in everything from thrill-inducing soundscapes that conjure dug-up graves to meticulously art-directed spaces that are truly haunting elevates these terrifying short horror tales.

Like any horror anthology, Cabinet of Curiosities is hardly perfect (it’d be boring if it were, frankly). But the misses are hardly unforgivable, and the hits are too entertaining to ignore.

So far GdT’s CoC is terrific, and future outings hold even greater promise. STREAM IT, I say, and stream the HELL out of it.

It's not just the promise of a good scare that casts a spell, but it's the exquisite corpses, furnished haunted houses, nightmarish paintings, and more. Every short here has a piece to recommend it, even if some burns can be too slow, or moral lessons a little too pat. ... A treat for fans of standout horror filmmaking.

All in all, Cabinet of Curiosities works because it's just that: A grab bag of different stories, linked together tenuously by del Toro. We never linger too long in one place, and horror benefits from the shadows that it can hide in.

Given the peaks that this series reaches and the overall quality of the filmmaking, this is a smashing success.

A mostly chilling, thrilling selection of scary tales. Guillermo Del Toro has made a selection pack of horror shorts full of ghosts, gore and giggles.

With interesting ideas, haunting visuals and memorable performances scattered across these eight offerings, this is a Halloween treat you'll definitely want more of.

Some episodes are more effective than others. “The Outside” (Wednesday) has a kind of “Don’t Worry Darling” vibe, with a better payoff. It’s genuinely memorable. Not so much with “Dreams of the Witch House” (Thursday), which, despite a game performance by Rupert Grint of “Harry Potter” fame, is borderline campy in its execution. On balance, though, this is a suitably grisly and nightmarish feast for fans of the sinister and the supernatural.

Cabinet of Curiosities feels like a haunted funhouse, as its eight shorts, each one helmed by a different director, reflect an eclectic range of tones and sensibilities.