Ever the magician and curator of all things odd, Oscar winner Guillermo Del Toro aims for the streaming platform this time around with his eight-part anthology, bringing together some of the best directors of horror under one series.

Resplendent with sepia-lined horror, Del Toro keeps the magical spirit of his movies in the essence of the short story adaptations. Each episode begins with the curator Del Toro himself setting the narrative and inviting a director to present their palate of horrors, out from Guillermo's cabinet of curiosities.

The cabinet, a physical manifestation of oak-cut eeriness, stands still as he examines the pieces in each chamber and hand picks one out for the viewers; just like the stories he has picked to be told in the series. The anthology features some of the niche voices of horror, including Ana Lily Amirpour of " A girl walks alone home at night", Jennifer Kent of " The Babadook" and David Prior of " The empty man".  The stories are told via some of the legendary voices of cinema, like Academy award winning F. Murray Abraham, Rupert Grint, Ben Barnes, among others.

The anthology begins with the episode ' Lot 36' directed by Guillermo Navarro, a longtime friend of Del Toro. Navarro also won an Oscar for his work as a cinematographer in Del Toro's film, "Pan's Labyrinth". The story follows Tim Blake Nelson, who portrays a bigoted veteran slowly going deaf in one ear, and is ready to make it everyone's problem. He ends up buying an abandoned storage unit belonging to a kooky old man, filled with antiques, old scarves and a mysterious seance table inlaid with blood. The main story starts when he tries to sell the contents of the seance table, and comes across a man willing to buy them all for a hefty price. Karma meets justice in this tale of twists, turns and limbs.

The series then takes a turn for the lighter in the episode called "Graveyard Rats", where glutton meets, well, a graveyard. Old and goofy Masson (David Hewlett) gets himself into a pickle, as he tries to pay for his gambling debt using jewelries that he robbed from the dead. The dead, who were laid to rest under his supervision, where he works as a groundskeeper. The story takes a breath-hitching turn when we get to see the lengths or the depths Masson would go to rob a recently buried rich man, ending the episode in a turn of suffocating and slightly gross note.

The third episode in the series truly would make any weak-willed individual's stomach turn -- the grisly horror of "The Autopsy" is definitely not for the weak. F Murray Abraham delivers a chilling, yet grounded, performance as a medical officer, invited over by his sheriff friend for an off-the-record autopsy. A no-holds-barred body horror, the autopsy had me glued to my seat, covering my face at times at the eerie scene unfolding before me with only one question, are we truly alone when we think we are?

Throughout the series, the old-school color and fairy tale tone of Del Toro's work can be seen omnipresent, a testament to his storytelling and outstanding character design. A perfect example for that would be the whimsical episode of 'The Outside', where awkward Stacey (Kate Micucci) tries so hard to fit in with her glamorous colleagues but fails. Much to her husband's dismay, she cannot resist the flamboyant Alo glo, portrayed by the mesmerising Dan Stevens.

Albeit the fact that it is hard to shake off the horror hangover of the first four episodes, the rest of the episodes are set to drop on Netflix Bangladesh from tomorrow. By then, Del Toro's carefully curated stories serve as the perfect art and whimsy-laden entree to get into the spirit of the spooky season.