Perhaps not the best horror movie in our marathon, but possibly the most beautiful.
At their heart, all ghost stories are mysteries. I don’t care if it’s Ringu or Scoobie Doo, the body count may differ but our heroes will have to uncover secrets of the past in order to ensure their survival. Edith Cushing, Crimson Peak’s heroine, tells us as much when describing the ghost story she’s writing. It’s one of several moments in the film that are a touch too on the nose, but it does get at a core truth about the type of story that director Guillermo del Toro is telling. Edith is the daughter of a wealthy American businessman who is being pitched an investment opportunity by a soft British inventor named Sir Thomas Sharpe. Unfortunately, the opportunity, involving dredging up red clay from Sharpe’s family’s land (ominously titled Crimson Peak), is a dubious one. Sharpe and Cushing hit it off, however, and she eventually finds herself travelling back to the family castle with him and his sister, Lucille. Also, Charlie Hunnam is there, but I’m not really sure what for.
Crimson Peak can best be described as a slow burn. This is not Poltergeist, despite the presence of several fantastically rendered ghosts, and I wouldn’t call it particularly scary. Spooky is the strongest adjective you could reasonably apply. The acting of the two leads (Mia Wasikowska and Tom Hiddleston) is very good, and Jim Beaver is great as Edith’s father. Set near the end of the 19th century, the whole thing is predictably a bit grandiose and humorless, but the period setting does allow del Toro to thrive when it comes to showing off costumes and locations. It’s really the feast of visual creativity that makes this a worthwhile investment of your time, particularly once the characters finally make it to the delirious, dilapidated castle on top of Crimson Peak.
Del Toro takes meticulous care crafting the way the film looks. The ghosts are both gruesome and eerily beautiful. The looks of the actors are all made to reflect the weight of difficult lives and choices, not Hollywood fairy tale reality. Wasikowska, Hunnam, Jessica Chastain… these are some of the most attractive people on the planet, but here they all look somewhat awkward and severe. It’s the use of color that really impresses, though. I doubt that a single napkin or slip cover was chosen without explicit consideration. There are times when Del Toro gets a little to clever for his own good, however: When we meet the eventual villain of the film, they are clad in deep blood red, while our heroine remains in chaste white. In the third act, this duality plays out again as the red clay surfaces from beneath the action while pure white snow falls, meeting where good and evil are doing battle at the film’s climax. You’d be tempted to roll your eyes, except it’s filmed so damn gloriously that you can’t help but forgive the indulgence.
I enjoyed Crimson Peak quite a bit, even if it isn’t necessarily as clever as it wants to be. The central mystery is solid, and resolves in a satisfying way. The cast does a good job with the material. It gets my recommendation, however, for the outstanding cinematography and creature design more than anything else.
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