Crimson Peak by Guillermo del Toro (review)

Guillermo del Toro is visionary in his approach to films. From depicting the horrors of the Spanish Civil War in The Devil’s Backbone (2001) through a terrifying orphanage in The Orphanage (2007) to the haunting rendering of post-Spanish Civil War guerilla warfare through a child’s fairytale vision in Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), del Toro is masterful at both visual decadence and social analysis. Del Toro has also proven himself adept at plying his trade with more mainstream action movies like Pacific Rim (2013) o r the Hellboy franchise (2004/2008). Borrowing from the Gothic genre, Crimson Peak (2015), while on a mainstream budget, envisions a new, female-centered plot that disrupts typical horror-themed blockbusters.

Set just before the turn of the twentieth century, this classic Victorian Gothic Romance offers a spectacular feast for the eyes. The film begins in medias res, and the viewer is immediately exposed to the supernatural elements of the story as the camera slowly tracks in on Edith Cushing’s (Mia Wasikowska) blood splattered face and hands against a backdrop of falling snow. Edith confesses “Ghosts are real. That much I know. I’ve seen them all my life.” However, in typical Del Toro style, the truly sinister figures are embodied by the living, and soon Edith’s dead mother’s spectral warning to “beware of Crimson Peak” will come to light.

As the plot unfolds the viewer is plunged into a backdrop of American industrialization. In a bit of meta-commentary on role of the Gothic genre in the film itself, we learn that the lead heroine Edith is an aspiring writer whose preference for ghost stories is discouraged by an editor that favors romance. Paying homage to the Female Gothic forces of Anne Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, and Charlotte Brontë, the film hints at the sexist undertones of a society that suppressed female sexual desires and alludes to a genre that allowed a subversive critique of gendered norms in a male-dominated society. And while Tom Hiddleston’s performance as Sir Thomas Sharpe, the tormented villain/love interest desperate for an escape from his dark past, is strong, Jessica Chastain’s performance as Lucille, Edith’s diabolical foil and Thomas’s controlling and conniving sister, is brilliant. Strong female characters drive the plot of Crimson Peak—not the ubiquitous gore and reliance on shock value of many contemporary horror films that seem to resist complex leading ladies.

When Edith’s hard-working banker father, Carter Cushing (Jim Beaver), refuses to finance Thomas’s clay-mining machine, matters quickly escalate when Edith and Thomas become romantically involved. After a suspicious murder, the couple is transported from a golden autumn in the United States, full of soft yellows and perennials, to the decaying decadence of Allerdale Hall in barren England.

Allerdale Hall is its own entity within the film. Labyrinthine, ornate, and wistfully dark, the house has a damaged center ceiling that allows for a continuous brush with the outside elements—leaves, moths, and snow float gracefully through the many-storied estate onto the elaborate tile flooring below. Emulating Perrault’s classic tale of “Bluebeard,” Edith is banished from certain areas of the house that contain clues to Thomas’s past wives. What secrets lie in the dusty attic that imprisoned these two strange siblings? And what is submerged in the pulsating pits of deep red mud below? The heavy bundle of keys always rests upon Lucille’s authoritative wrist, and the closer Edith seems to get to Thomas, the more the house seems to speak to her. Brandt Gordon’s art direction and Kate Hawley’s costume design portray a deteriorating atmosphere obsessed with the opulence of the past. As Thomas and Lucille preside over innocent Edith in deep velvet black and sanguine red, the rich scenery allows for more traditional frames and symbolism to leak through.

While horror fans may bemoan the lack of special effects and the rather predictable plot, the film’s beauty lies in what it does to reinvigorate the...