Cabinet of Curiosities Star Crispin Glover Explains Why Horror Needs Dark Endings (Exclusive)

Guillermo del Toro’s new series, Cabinet of Curiosities, hit Netflix earlier this week, and series star Crispin Glover isn’t promising anybody a happy ending. In fact, the Back to the Future and Charlie’s Angels star feels like one of the great things about horror is that you don’t have a formulaic ending, and that there are various ways that dark or bittersweet endings can be as good or better than the happy ending the audience thinks they want.

“I tend toward liking psychological terror, if you want to put it in that genre,” Glover told ComicBook.com’s Chris Killian. “I always thought Repulsion by Polanski was really a fantastic psychological terror film. But then I also enjoy the metaphors that sometimes happen. I always thought, of course, some of the metaphors that came through in both Night of Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead fitting into that genre. But then going back to old classic early horror like Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein Monster, it jumps around as to what I appreciate, but his performance in that is a beautiful performance. And there’s a pathos. When there’s a pathos within the outcast, I find that quite compelling, and that can be beautifully rendered in the horror genre. So it depends what my favorite things are in terms of the ending, some of them that I just mentioned. There’s a pathos in the ending of Night of the Living Dead, and it had that kind of civil rights metaphor that was done really through casting, and I thought very eloquent. And then strangely, Dawn of the Dead was really a great commentary on shopping.”

In Frankenstein, he added, “Well, there was a pathos. You feel bad for the character that Boris Karloff plays. And Repulsion, that’s a hard one to analyze. It goes through this kind of extreme delusional state where you’re experiencing the delusion of the character essentially. And then it switches out, not from her perspective, but from essentially her sister’s and her sister’s boyfriend’s perspective. And it’s hard to determine — is that a happy ending? Is it a terrible ending? It’s hard to say. When the castle caves in on the character that Boris Karloff plays in Frankenstein, is that a happy ending? Is it the proper ending? Or is that a sad ending? If this is a tortured character, perhaps that’s the proper bittersweet happiness that he’s not having to be tortured. So I like things that have multiple layers to them in terms of endings, whether it’s happy or sad. Bittersweet often is a nice way for something to end.”

In Cabinet of Curiosities, acclaimed Academy Award-winning filmmaker and creator, executive producer and co-showrunner Guillermo del Toro has curated a collection of unprecedented and genre-defining stories meant to challenge our traditional notions of horror. From macabre to magical, gothic to grotesque or classically creepy, these eight equally sophisticated and sinister tales (including two original stories by del Toro) are brought to life by a team of writers and directors personally chosen by del Toro.

Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities is created and executive produced by Guillermo del Toro; executive produced by Academy Award winner J. Miles Dale (The Shape of Water; Sex/Life), who also serves as co-showrunner; and executive produced by Gary Ungar. Regina Corrado serves as co-executive producer. Del Toro also serves as host.

You can find the initial batch of Cabinet of Curiosities episodes on Netflix now.