Guillermo del Toro is a rather unusual director and for the most part I appreciate his work. This collection of around one-hour mini movies has a certain feel to it that is similar to Black Mirror but in my opinion not nearly as good.
I would classify all of these unrelated 8 stories as "tales of dread" because that is what they are for the most part. Episode 1 has nothing to do with episode 2 or 3 and vice versa. This much I can appreciate because each one hour is a completely different story so if you didn't like the 1st one, you can still continue to see what future episodes hold. This is one thing that I appreciated about Black Mirror as well and I wish more producers would investigate doing unrelated series like this.
The episodes focus on horror, the occult, supernatural occurrences, demons of some sort, and other things like that which are a lot of fun if you are into that sort of thing.
Every single episode is introduced by Guillermo in his difficult-to-understand-without-subtitles accent and he gives a brief overview of the upcoming episode and tells us who the director is going to be. None of the episodes are directed by del Toro himself and at least up to this point, no director is involved with more than one single episode.
I guess this keeps things fresh for someone that really has an eye for direction but it also ensures that every episode has a very distinct feel to it.
For a fan of dread stories maybe this sounds like a wonderful thing to have access to in your Netflix library but let's not get ahead of ourselves. It really isn't that great. The stories themselves are pretty decent but several of them don't really make a lot of sense, even though they are focusing on things that are impossible in real life.
Mostly the actors are of minor fame and the only truly famous person that I remember being in it at all was Crispin Glover who you may recall from being "George, George McFly, I'm your density" in Back to the Future. The fact that they steer away from major actors says two things to me: They didn't have enough money to hire them and also that instead they were aiming to make the episodes good instead of putting someone really famous in them.
You may recall from Black Mirror an episode that had Miley Cyrus in it when for the most part they would put unknowns in the casts. That episode with Miley is largely regarded as the worst episode in the entire Black Mirror library.
The stories go back and forth in time so nothing ends up feeling too modern or too old-timey. Hell, they even have one that is done in an almost cyberpunk style which unfortunately, in my mind, is the worst episode of the lot and I say this as someone that really enjoys that sort of style.
Should I watch it?
As far as the offerings on Netflix are concerned right now I think you could do a lot worse than this series. The best thing about series like this is that if you are not really into the subject matter of the first episode you can rest easy in knowing that the next one has nothing at all to do with that save an overall horror/dread theme. So if you are into horror or a kind of mindf**k theme, than I think there is a very good chance that you are going to enjoy this. Be warned though, this stuff is quite graphic and gory and that isn't going to be for everyone.
