Over my Fall Break I was able to see Crimson Peak. I have to be honest, I was super hyped for this movie when it first got announced on IMDB. Maybe it was because a big time director like Guillermo Del Toro was attached to it or there were familiar actors like Tom Hiddleston (Loki from the Marvel Cinematic Universe) and Mia Wasikowska (Alice from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland). But I think it was because it was advertised as a haunted house based plot taking place in the 1800s and early 1900s. I'm a sucker for ghost stories in the older ages, in fact, my favorite horror film from the millennia is The Woman in Black. Movies like these go back to films like Dracula or Frankenstein in a Gothic Victorian era setting. It kind of reminds me of Amnesia The Dark Descent at times. I won't try to spoil it, but I have to go into it a bit to do it justice. So, I guess, sort of spoiler alert.
When the trailers came out, it was no mystery that this was going to be a horror movie. After all it was marketed as such, highlighting the house itself and jump cuts of the ghosts (whose designs scream Del Toro's name). It seemed like just a mundane horror movie that would meet too much expectations and only horror junkies like myself where drawn to it. After seeing the movie, I can now say that I went in and got something completely different.
The movie centers around a girl named Edith Cushing (Wasikowska), a daughter of a businessman in early 1900s America. She's also a rising writer it seems, since its only mentioned as a side note and doesn't play a huge role (so you'd think). An English Baronet, Thomas Sharpe (Hiddleston) arrives in America with his sister (Jessica Chastain) seeking an investment from Edith's father to assist him in his clay mining projects. He and his sister live in a mansion outside of their native town and is located just above a mine of particular red clay.
Edith spends time with Thomas during his visit, despite her father rejecting him and even bribing him to leave and they fall in love. When Edith's father is murdered by an unseen killer, she marries Sharpe and moves in with him.
That's all back story and at this point you might be wondering, well where are the ghosts? Isn't this a ghost story? There may or not be a debate on this, is Crimson Peak a horror movie? Wikipedia has it listed as a gothic romance film. I will never in a million years pay money to see a romance movie and it certainly didn't feel like one. However, the movie appears to be aware of this. Edith is said to be in the process of writing a book, we never get to see what its about but everyone who looks at it calls it a ghost story. To which Edith replies that its not and the ghosts are merely metaphors of the past.
She just described the movie, this blew my mind. Edith first began seeing ghosts as a young girl, in fact, it was that of her own mother warning her of Crimson Peak. So, she isn't surprised in anyway that ghosts are real and there's no tedious build up to there appearance.
So what's the point of the movie? If its not about the ghosts, then what is it about? I think its a mystery, like Amnesia The Dark Descent its someone trying to figure out what the deal is with the house they find themselves in.
We associate ghosts with death and haunting, meaning that they were once living people who passed away and now haunt the house of Crimson Peak. There's quite a few ghosts in that house, all of which are young women and there's even one of a baby. How did they die? Why is Thomas and his sister always acting so weird?
So, gothic romance or horror, Crimson Peak is one of the smartest movies in the genre I've seen in a while. And yes, I believe it falls into the horror category. For all I know, Dracula was a gothic romance and that went on to become an horror icon. As for a Guillermo Del Toro movie, it definitely feels like one with its creature designs and some actors who appeared in his earlier Pacific Rim also pop in and out. If you liked Pan's Labyrinth, then you'll like Crimson Peak.
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