‘Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities’: ‘Graveyard Rats’ Turns the Tables on a Grave Robber
The new Netflix anthology series, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, premiered on Oct. 25 and features eight hours of horrific tales. Del Toro curated the stories, directors, and writers for the show, and each episode features some of the most gruesome special effects ever to hit the streaming platform. Cabinet of Curiosities Episode 2, “Graveyard Rats,” starring David Hewlett and based on the short story by Henry Kuttner.
[WARNING: This article contains detailed spoilers for Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities Episode 2, “Graveyard Rats.”]
A grave robber runs into an unusual problem
When we first meet Masson (Hewlett) in Cabinet of Curiosities‘ “Graveyard Rats,” he catches two young men robbing the grave of a woman who recently died. He chastises them and scolds them about the importance of graves and cemeteries. However, after the two men leave, Masson hops inside the coffin for himself to steal the rest of the woman’s valuables. He checks her teeth, too, as gold teeth bring him the most money in his line of work.
Masson pawns off the items he steals from graves to make a dishonest living, but he owes money to a man who threatens to kill him if he doesn’t pay his debt. Masson explains that the rats in the cemetery began stealing the items from the dead and are cutting into his profits. He begs the man for more time to pay off what he owes, but the man refuses.
Masson previously made a bargain with a local mortician who lets him inspect the bodies in the morgue for gold teeth or silver fillings. In a desperate attempt to pay off his debt, Masson goes to the morgue to see if any of the current bodies contain anything valuable. The mortician Dooley, played by Julian Richings (Anything for Jackson), tells him he doesn’t have anything for him, but Masson notices an area sectioned off by a curtain. Dooley tries to keep Masson from looking behind the curtain, but he pushes past him to find a man with several gold teeth. Masson tries to extract the teeth right then, but Dooley pushes him off and promises him he can have them after the funeral. He tells Dooley the rats will get to him before he can get the teeth out, but Dooley doesn’t care.
Masson’s determination to get the gold teeth leads to a much darker discovery
After the body of the man is buried, Masson opens the coffin to hear rats squeaking and watches as the body slides through a hole gnawed by the rats. Masson dives after the corpse and discovers a maze of tunnels.
Determined to get the valuables off the body, Masson goes deeper into the tunnels until one collapses underneath him. Rats swarm around him, and as they do, he attempts to ward them off by firing a shot from his gun. However, he only manages to shoot a hole in his foot. Masson continues to crawl in the direction of the corpse, and as he rounds a corner, a giant rat-like monster appears. He shoots the creature, but it only wounds it. The monstrous rodent scratches his arm, and Masson crawls faster to get away. The ground beneath him gives way. He falls into a cavern filled with the bones of all the bodies the rats stripped free.
Masson meets a fitting end in ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ Episode 2 ‘Graveyard Rats’
At first, Masson believes he hit the jackpot as most of the skeletons have jewels and gold teeth. But, one piece of jewelry catches his eye in particular. One skeleton pinned to the wall wears a gold pendant, and Masson tries to pull it off. However, the skeleton comes to life and screeches, “MINE!” at Masson, and tries to get the necklace back. Masson scrambles away with the necklace in hand and heads back into the maze of tunnels. He finally sees a light shining in the distance and steadily crawls toward it, thinking he’s found a way out.
When he gets up close he realizes it’s not the light of the outside shining into the tunnels. Instead, his flashlight had been pinging off a silver plate from inside a coffin reading, “Requiescat in pace.” Masson had crawled into an empty coffin, and now he was stuck there to die. Rats begin to flood the coffin, and Masson screams in horror. In the following scene, the grave robbers we saw at the beginning of Cabinet of Curiosities’ “Graveyard Rats” open the coffin to find Masson’s dead body with the necklace placed perfectly around his neck.
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