LOT 36-- My take on the episode with spoilers!

 PLOT: A man finds that the storage unit he won in an auction, holds valuable items and terrifying secrets.

There's always that one character in a horror movie that warns the others to not mess around with Ouija boards and demon-summoning rituals. Of course, no one listens to this reasonable character and not only performs the ritual but also drags said reasonable character into their whole mess.

Usually, it is this reasonable character who gets killed first.

The irony.

Anyway, noted filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has come up with a series of horror shorts that he has not only curated but contributed to as well. Titled Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities, the series premiered on October 25th. 

The very first episode, or the first story, is written by him along with Regina Corrado.

LOT 36 PLOT

The first scene opens with an elderly man watching the news and eating a prepared meal. He gets up and dumps his unfinished meal into the trash before heading to the kitchen counter to chop up a poor rabbit. Right before he can finish, he suffers a stroke and dies. The rabbit entrails fall from the table.

Next we meet Nick Appleton. He's driving around in his truck and listening to some racist tirade on the radio. He agrees with the speaker.

In these few moments it is established that he is foul-mouthed, grumpy, and a racist.

He drives up to a storage facility where an auction is taking place. The facility owner, Eddie, and Nick seem to have an arrangement going on because Nick wins the auction.

He barely gets to celebrate his victory before he receives a call from a loan shark. He was not supposed to cross lines and he is warned that he has eyes on him.

Nick is just a little rattled but he already has a plan on how to get rid of his debt.

Just as all this is going on, a woman called Emilia comes over and inquires about her storage unit which Eddie had accidentally put up for auction and made Nick win. Eddie realizes he had gotten Emilia's updated contact information and feels like an idiot fir having forgotten to send the eviction notice at the right address.

He asks her to approach Nick who is outside and grumbling about the storage unit being smaller than he expected and how Eddie wasn’t going to give him a discount.

Emilia goes to meet him only to be insulted due to his prejudice. She pleads with him to let her take her family photos and letters at least but Nick continues to ignore her. Finally, he asks her to pay a thousand bucks to get her stuff. Emilia makes that much in a month by cleaning. She doesn’t have it on her.

Nick gives her a lock and tells her that it is the best he can do. Emilia tells him to rot in hell in Spanish. His retort is to go learn the language of the country she's living in.

If you've seen Drag me to hell, you know where this is going. While Emilia doesn't exactly put a curse on him, she does curse him and in a way, it sort of comes true.

Nick wonders who has been keeping an eye on him when later in the evening, a loan shark attacks him and breaks the windshield of his truck.

Desperate to get rid of the debt, he finds some weird things in the storage unit that he decides to sell off.

Eddie refers him to a woman called Agatha who may be interested. Nick visits her and of course she's interested, especially in the séance table that Nick didn’t know was a séance table. Uh-oh...

But Nick being Nick doesn’t believe in all these things but he does believe in making more money. When he finds three books hidden in the table drawers, Agatha calls another friend, Roland.

Roland knows his stuff and knows that the three books are valuable but their value would increase should the fourth book be found.

Nick is immediately intrigued. He is being promised a check for $300,000 on the spot!

He stuffs the books in his duffel bag and rushes out. Roland takes the golden candelabra with him that is supposed to offer him protection from a demon.

Now the fourth book is rare because it is used to summon a demon and make him earthbound. However when the transaction is complete, the book will self-combust. But should the demon be deceived, he will punish you.

As they ride to the storage facility, Roland asks about the broken windshield that has been taped up. Nick lies about being rear-ended.

Roland then tells him that he knows who owned the unit before and it was a man who had sacrificed his sister to the demon.

He also suspects that since the owner died of  heart attack that means the ritual isn’t complete and the book must still exist. Remember the guy from the beginning. That was him.

Nick doesn’t really care about the occult stories. His eyes are on the money.

When they reach the unit, they search from top to bottom and end up finding a secret passage. No wonder the unit seemed smaller!

The two head down the passage and come to a room where there is a summoning circle in red. Right in the center is a woman without a face.

Nick is taken aback but then he eyes the book. Roland tells him about how the demon entered through the woman's face but Nick shrugs off any warning and goes to get the book.

Of course he doesn't go from the side and ends up smudging the circle lines. Roland tells him to stop but Nick has gone to touch the book.

Just then tentacles emerge from the woman's face and out and tear through her torso. The woman gets on her feet and heads to Roland who is dumbstruck.

In the next instant, he is caught in a tentacle trap and eaten. The book in Nick's hands, burns.

He rushes out of the room and down the corridors only to find the demon everywhere he turns.

Finally, he ends up at the exit but of course, it is locked. He sees Emilia and beckons her, pleading for help.

She pretends not to understand and then shows him the lock he gave her. In the next instant, she puts it on the door and walks away.

Nick realizes that karma has come to get him.

He barely gets to scream before the demon with tentacles for a head comes for him and wraps him in it.

That's it for Nick who couldn't be satisfied with the $10,000 he was going to get for the three books. He had to go for the fourth.

Also, the story has a strong message about being kind to everyone. It doesn't matter if they are different, just try to be a nice human beings.

The story seemed to drag in the beginning but gets interesting in the second half.

Not the strongest opening for this series but still a good story with some shocking elements.

Scare Scale: 3.5/5