PLOT: A grave robber must deal with savage rodents when he tries to steal a wealthy man's possessions.
If you're afraid of rats or simply find them disgusting, you may just want to skip this episode. Some of the scenes will make your stomach churn.
But doing so would mean that you miss out on a particularly frightening episode.
Graveyard Rats is a short horror story written by Henry Kuttner and was published in 1936, but it is Guillermo del Toro who brings this tale to life.
GRAVEYARD RATS PLOT
When the episode begins, we see two young men digging up a poor woman who was barely nineteen when she passed.
The poor woman was buried with her jewels and the thieves are bust picking them up.
But then Masson arrives with a gun in his hand and the robbers flee. Will the woman get a decent burial again? Nope.
Turns out Masson isn't a grave keeper but a grave robber. He is old and has a huge gambling bet. So of course he has to resort to thievery.
Masson isn’t simply interested in jewels. He checks the corpse's teeth and finds a gold tooth.
Now why did people use gold in their teeth? To fill in cavities. Gold was supposed to be durable and also a sign that you were wealthy enough to get cavities and repair teeth with gold. People also used to smile wider in the olden days so that everyone could see the gold in their mouth.
Anyway, Masson gets to plucking out the gold tooth. The woman had only one.
While he is performing this nefarious deed, he gets bitten on his hand by a rat. Masson drops the tooth in the coffin which has already been dug by tunneling rats.
Masson then goes to meet a man to sell off the jewelry at least but oh no, they are pewter. The man reminds him of his debt and Masson complains about rats. The man tells him it isn’t his problem and should he not pay back soon, he will have to pay with his blood.
Horrified by this threat, Masson goes to see the coroner who is also a friend of his. He is shown several corpses and he inspects all of their mouths. To his disappointment, none of them were rich and poor people took good care of their oral hygiene save for one who had wooden dentures.
Masson feels dejected and is about to leave when he spots an area that is curtained.
He opens the curtains to find a man laying on a gurney. The coroner tries to discourage him, saying he is too rich and obviously his family, who is coming to see him, will notice his missing teeth. Because guess what? He has several gold teeth.
Now either he wanted to show off his opulence or he had a sweet tooth. Either way, Masson almost pounces on him but then holds back when the man's family comes to pay their respects.
Masson and the coroner hide. Turns out he was only an assistant and the actual coroner has come. The grieving widow decides to bury a saber the man had been gifted. The saber is priceless, as the son states, and will be lost forever. The widow doesn't care and thinks it will be a fitting tribute for her husband.
Masson's eyes light up like gold. He makes a plan to rob the man after he is interred.
Later, Masson is laying on his bed when he notices a wire coming through a hole in the ceiling. It's wriggling on its own as well. He tugs on it and plop, a big rat falls on him. Before he can recover, a horde of rats come down on him.
But phew! It was all a dream. Or was it a warning?
Masson goes ahead with his plan to rob the wealthy man. He digs and opens the coffin only to see the rats drag the corpse away.
Masson almost abandons his mission, then recalls the debts he has and the threats made to him. He envisions being straddled and then put in a coffin.
Shaking, Masson decides that there is no way the rats are going to get away with his treasure. He follows them down a tunnel.
There are roots everywhere and one of them pokes his eyes. Irritated, he pulls on it only to have rocks fall all over him.
But that's not the end of Mason yet. He perseveres and climbs out and keeps crawling through the tunnels.
That is when he finds himself facing a giant rat. Something is clearly off here based on the big, fat rat we see. But Masson doesn't believe so. He has eyes on the prize. He's packing a pistol and shoots at the rat before escaping.
He comes upon a room where there are bones and skulls of all the corpses dragged through the tunnels. He finds jewels buried with the bones.
Masson begins to stuff his pockets when his greedy eyes rest on a statue who is wearing a pretty necklace. He snatches it and immediately regrets it as the mummy comes to life. Except this mummy doesn’t have legs.
Masson does some more running around until he manages to drop a boulder on the giant rat who hadn't died yet. The mummy also leaves him alone after that.
Masson manages to see a light at the end of the tunnel and makes his way to it, promising himself that he will be a better person now.
Seems like the universe doesn't believe him because it doesn't really help Masson.
Turns out the light at the end of the tunnel was the reflection of his flashlight. He had been shining his flashlight at a plaque that read Requiescat in Pace.
Masson howls when he realizes there's no escape. Worse, his nightmares have come true. He's trapped in a coffin as rats crawl all over him.
Some time later, two grave robbers dig up a coffin to find a dead Masson. He's wearing the mummy's necklace. As they reach for it, Masson begins to move.
But nope, he's not alive. There are rats tunneling inside him. A big, furry rat emerges from his mouth. And then another one. And another.
Gross.
The episode ends.
The second episode in Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities was actually quite entertaining and horrifying.
If one doesn't fear rats, they sure will after this episode.
Scare Scale: 3.5/5
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