After losing a child, ornithologists Nancy and Edgar retreat to a remote island to study bird murmurations, only to discover that the house they are staying in has its own tragic history.

The final compartment of Del Toro’s cabinet opens onto an adaptation of one of his own short stories, and while it is the least ‘curious’ of all the tales, for me, it is by far the most satisfying.

From The Orphanage to Don’t Look Now the loss of a child is a common starting point for many genre movies, and The Murmuring doesn’t attempt to do anything surprising with a very familiar set-up. The couple is compelled to confront their unbearable grief by supernatural forces despite their attempts to escape it. Where the story moves into more original and moving territory is when it asks whether Nancy can possibly heal the unquiet spirits as well her tortured self.

Whether or not you are surprised by anything that happens, it hardly matters because it is helmed by the brilliant Jennifer Kent, who directed The Babadook, one of my all-time favourite horror films, and who underpins her work with an excruciatingly sensitive understanding of human nature, of relationships, and of the grinding emotional mechanics of depression – in reality, the most common psychological horror that ordinary people regularly endure.

There is no gore in this episode, just a beautiful story, where the scares are driven by character and loss, and are all the more memorable for that. Kent has brought together a perfect screen partnership with Essie Davis (who also starred in The Babadook) teaming up with Andrew Lincoln as the struggling couple, playing it for the truth of every moment, with a rich sense of emotional hinterland all too rare in short form horror.

Verdict: The Murmuring may be too lightweight for some, but I think it’s a perfectly formed jewel of a tale, and a fitting conclusion to an interesting, if slightly patchy curate’s cabinet of a series. 8/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com