Man, I really need to stop getting my hopes up about stuff. It seems like every time I get excited for something, I end up being let down and left unsatisfied. I’ve been anticipating Crimson Peak, the new movie from director Guillermo del Toro, for quite some time now, and while I ultimately liked the final result, something about it just feels so hollow. It’s a very good movie, but not a great as I had hoped it would be. Its very much worth seeing, but not absolutely critical to watch. Like I said, it just felt unsatisfying. Oh well, let’s get to it, shall we?
Crimson Peak begins with the death of Edith Cushing’s mother, who returns to her daughter in a ghostly form and warns her to be wary of a place called “Crimson Peak.” Fourteen years later, a now grown Edith (Mia Wasikowska) is wooed by the mysterious English Aristocrat Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) and she quickly falls in love with him. But Edith’s father is bothered by Sharpe and sets out to find what it is about the stranger that irks him so. Mr. Cushing discovers the secret shared by Sharpe and his sister, Lucille (Jessica Chastain), and bribes them to leave America and never speak to Edith again. Unfortunately, Mr. Cushing is gruesomely murdered and Sharpe marries the grief stricken Edith, taking her away to his family’s ancestral home, Allendale Hall*. Soon after arriving, Edith learns that the estate is nicknamed “Crimson Peak,” and this is when the movie really kicks into gear.
In the context of the movie, Edith is an aspiring writer who doesn’t write ghost stories, but stories that happen to have ghosts in them. That’s a pretty good parallel for what Crimson Peak is as a whole. This may be the least scary Scary Movie that has ever been made. The various ghosts who haunt Edith’s home and Allendale Hall provide some jump scares and a bit of a creep factor, but they really just serve to push the plot forward. They are not central, and you get the sense that Edith could have discovered the Sharpes’ plot without their help if she just put forth a little effort.
Though what we lack in pants-shitting terror is more than made up in some graphic fucking violence. When Mr. Cushing is killed, there are zero punches pulled and is a bloody wonderful mess. The ghosts are all designed to look like half decayed skeletons, dripping with gore and nearly screaming in pain. Later on, towards the end of the movie, shit gets real and the stabbings get realer. It turns into a wonderful symphony of violence and I loved every second of it.
As long as I’m talking about stuff that’s crazy awesome, let me take a minute to talk about Jessica Chastain. Holy fuck, is she the best or what? She spends most of the movie playing a distant ice queen (wonderfully, I might add.), but when it’s finally her moment to shine, she transforms into the most magnificent maniac the world has ever seen. She play both roles with such delicious malice, and it’s a credit to writers del Toro and Matthew Robbins how seamless the transition for the character is. Chastain’s a bright, shining beacon of awesome smack dab in the middle of this thing.
On the other hand, there’s Charlie Hunnam as Alan McMichael, Edith’s childhood friend and onetime suitor who picks up the investigation into the lives of the Sharpes after Mr. Cushing’s death. Everything about his character feels unnecessary and shoehorned in. He gives Edith a lesson about ghosts that never amounts to much of anything beyond telling us the ghosts are real, a belief that Edith already holds, and he shows up at Allendale towards the end to confront the Sharpes and tell Edith what he has learned.
His appearance here has to be a shout out to Dick Hallorann, the cook from The Shining, since his arrival at Allendalel goes about as well as Hallorann’s at the Overlook Hotel. Sorry if that’s a bit of a spoiler, but like I said, fuck this entirely unnecessary character who gets exactly what he deserves.
But in the end, none of this is why you need to go see Crimson Peak. You need to go see Crimson Peak because it’s one of the most beautifully shot genre films there has been in a while. Del Toro and cinematographer Dan Laustsen create a Victorian wonderland, awash in technicolor glory. Allendale Hall especially is a masterpiece of Gothic moodiness, a dreamscape come to life. Its at once nightmarish and gorgeous and has to be seen and experienced. I could go on for paragraphs about how much I love the cinematography and set design, but I’m already running long here, so I better wrap this up. Just know that it is a sight to see.
Crimson Peak isn’t the film that I had hoped that it would be. It’s not the terrifying Edgar Allen Poe-esque scarefest that the trailers had built it up to be in my mind. Perhaps my expectations for it were so high that nothing could have compared to the film I had constructed in my head. Nevertheless, the result was a well made film that accomplishes what it wants to accomplish. My problems with it probably stem from my own hyping of it to an unfair degree. Thankfully I’ll never get excited for a movie that will probably not be as good as advertised.
Oh fuck.
*I really, REALLY hope I got the name of the house correct.
