Review: ‘Crimson Peak’

From the director of such modern horror classics as the vampire film “Cronos” and the ghost story “The Devil’s Backbone” and the wickedly dark adult fairy tale “Pan’s Labrynth,” each one creepier and spookier and more violent than the last, comes a…costume drama of manners and high society? Well, in a way, yes absolutely, this is the case, but of course Guillermo Del Toro isn’t just making a turn of the century love story in the style of “Wuthering Heights” and “Pride and Prejudice,” he takes this classic genre of storytelling and infuses it with what he knows and does best, and that is telling the tale of monsters, whether they be vampires or ghosts or the scariest type of monster of them all, humans. This movie is about a woman having to choose between two suitors but also having to survive a bad situation which she doesn’t realize is bad until it is too late.

This is “Crimson Peak.”

Edith (Mia Wasikowska) starts the movie by seeing ghosts twice – well, technically, the same ghost, on two separate occasions, over a dozen years apart. This ghost very creepily tells Edith to beware of Crimson Peak, which Edith does not recognize as a thing she should know. Meanwhile, she meets a young aristocrat named Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), who met with her wealthy father in order to solicit investors for an invention of his. While he doesn’t get the money, he manages to get something else, and that is Edith’s attention and then her heart, and he manages to get her to marry him and move with him from New York to England to stay at his family estate.

At this estate, Edith lives with Thomas as well as her sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain), who acts kind of coldly to Edith, outside of her insistence on making Edith tea. Lots and lots of tea. It is also worth noting that the house, while grandiose and impressive in scale, is also very rundown, and it is obvious that these aristocratic siblings have pretty much no money, which is why Thomas’ invention was so important, because it would assist with the family business, which is mining some sort of red clay that seeps out of the ground and through pipes int he house’s basement levels, appearing like thick oozing blood flowing everywhere, a very creepy and weird look for sure. We see the state of their home and at the same time we know, especially with the way Lucille seems to conspire with Thomas, that Edith is in trouble and that Thomas and Lucille seems to wish her harm in some way.

Oh, and Edith starts seeing ghosts inside the house.

Oh, and then she finds out the estate’s wintery nickname is Crimson Peak.

When it comes to the “horror” of this film, after a BANG of an intro with the first ghostly visits to Edith, “Crimson Peak” takes its time, establishing the characters and especially Edith, the young aspiring writer with a dearth of life experience, feeling alone in the world, literally haunted by her past, and even when she starts seeing ghosts at the Sharpe residence, they are somewhat menacing but more mysterious than anything else, and this mysterious nature of theirs in addition to Lucille’s obvious hidden agenda makes for more uncertainty than anything else, which of course some people may find to be most frightening of all, having no idea what is really happening or what will happen next. Edith investigates through the story and starts to gather clues that tells her what is really happening, and it gets to a point in which what we thought was the malevolent force in this story was something else entirely, that the true evil has been plainly hidden, and the ultimate reveal the exact nature of the situation is shocking and over the top, and really informs everything that came before it.

Being a Guillermo Del Toro movie, of course this is an exceedingly gorgeous film, absolutely lush and detailed and a real pleasure to look at. From the overly theatrical and operatic lighting to the costuming and production design, and especially the house itself, with his huge doorways and intense hallways, this movie is simply beautiful. Even the ghosts of dismembered and battered people, oozing red or covered in black, missing pieces of their faces or heads, have an oddly ethereal still kind of beautiful in an ugly way sort of look to them. And the aforementioned red clay gave them an opportunity to bathe certain sequences in deep crimson red, whether it be the basement or their clothes or the snow outside, giving everything that otherworldly, covered in blood appearance that is just so striking.

It also helps that Del Toro et. al. roped in some top notch actors for these performances – Chastain, Hiddleston and Wasikowska are kind of becoming known for the roles and projects they pick, not always going for the obvious commercial hits or easy movies, instead finding themselves in challenging roles in very arty, well made movies like “A Most Violent Year” and “The Double” and “Stoker” and “Only Lovers Left Alive,” and they are all perfect for this kind of period setting and this style of old school operatic haunted mansion type of movies and stories that used to be told all the time. They are all great so that when the big emotional turns start coming in the final act of them the film, they hit hard, come across as very real and believable (especially within the confines of this very unbelievable and over the top story), and they just help bring it all home to a satisfying ending.

“Crimson Peak” is a beautiful film, reminiscent of a type of movie that is very made anymore, and mixed with a style of horror that is uniquely Del Toro, and this mix works great. Just a wonderfully made movie.