Crimson PeakThere is a story about a group of altogether famous authors who convene in a house to concoct the best horror story. Among these personages were Lord Byron and Percy Shelly, as well as Mary Wollstonecraft, who would end up winning this friendly competition with her blood-curdling tale of terror, "Frankenstein". Mary was unique among this band as the only woman author, but her gothic tale of horror and fantasy which came to her in a dream proved to be the most inventive and bone-chilling. As an admirer of Mary Wollstonecraft, Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) walks along a similar path, albeit hers leaves behind bloody footprints in the snow atop Crimson Peak.
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Guillermo del Toro is a cinephile and a highly studious filmmaker who knows the roots and history of cinema like few others. His horror masterpiece (yes, I call it a masterpiece so soon), Crimson Peak, is a blood-soaked love letter to a particular brand of horror film, notably those made famous by Hammer Film Productions, better referred to as "Hammer Horror". Even Edith's family name, "Cushing", is a direct reference to one of Hammer's most prolific performers, Peter Cushing. Like the bold, gothic look of Hammer Horror, Crimson Peak is a costume drama with everything from shrieking ghosts to bleeding walls--in the form of the crimson clay which literally oozes from the pores of the venerable Allerdale Hall, the homestead of both Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) and his sister, Lucille (Jessica Chastain). Similarly, Crimson Peak is also reminiscent of the classic horror adaptations by Roger Corman of the works of Edgar Allen Poe for film during the 1960s, like The Raven and The Masque of the Red Death. Truth be told, would Vincent Price have performed a walk-on in Crimson Peak, I would not have been surprised, even if the late actor appeared as a phantom. In some ways, Tom Hiddleston reminds me a bit of Vincent Price; both men have a handsome charm, accentuated by a faint awkwardness and modicum of instability. Crimson Peak's literary influence is evident in Edith, who herself is not just a novelist, but a writer with a predilection toward horror, a deeply rooted drive which grew from the time when she was ten, and her mother passed away from cholera...only for her wraith-like ghost to emerge to warn her against events she could not yet hope to understand. Similar to many women writers of the day, such as "George Eliot" (the pen name of Mary Ann Evans), Edith finds that her sex is an obstacle in the publication of her horror novel, with publishers "suggesting" that she introduce a love story into it to find readership. She finds a literary aficionado in none other than Sir Thomas Sharpe, a "baronet" and solicitor for her father's support in funding his mining of an iron-rich clay which comes from his home in England, its natural hue a deep sanguine color which bleeds from the earth surrounding his home. Edith's father, Carter Cushing (Jim Beaver) turns the baronet down, on the basis that he doesn't trust a man whose hands appear to have seen no hard work. So it is safe to say that when Edith and Thomas begin to see one another, the father grows suspicious of the displaced royal's intentions.
Thomas and Lucille appear as though out of some gothic tale themselves, looking not unlike a vampiric pair of fraternal twins, Lucille in her blood-red evening dress and Thomas, a master of waltzes and eloquence, not unlike a prince of darkness. Perhaps this is a part of what attracts Edith to Thomas, that allure of darkness, even though he appears as the consummate gentleman by and large. Thomas performs to Edith's fantasies of what her dashing gothic hero should be; their scenes of romance are intense and passionate, and awaken a love which Edith concealed from herself. Ironically, her own story of horror ends up with moments of romance, the same kind which Thomas indicates to her that her horror novel would benefit without such sentimentality, the same kind which he exploits to draw her into his world. Edith is attracted to his darkness, not unlike Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is attracted to Mr. Rochester, like a moth to a flame; even a mad woman runs rampant in the upstairs attic. When tragedy strikes, Edith and Thomas' relationship is reinforced when they move to Allerdale Hall, and Edith begins to support Thomas in his invention to mine the red clay from his home and sell it to rebuild the Sharpe Estate. But her new home is a corpse of a manor, with massive holes allowing the leaves and snow to get in, and creaking boards and rattling pipes making moans and death rattles. The increasingly cold and menacing new home for Edith is also accompanied by manifestations of crimson, skeletal specters which skulk and wail in the throes of eternal agony. Though Edith acknowledges that she has always seen ghosts, one might wonder if these ghosts are not mere figments of her imagination, such as it is with other gothic ghost stories of the 19th century, like Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw", where a governess is driven mad with the belief that there are ghosts surrounding her. Further alluding to Crimson Peak's literary background, Edith's friend, Dr. Alan McMichael (Charlie Hunnam), is a fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and he shows her images in one scene of photographic depictions of ghosts. He claims that, in some places, something about the minerals and other elements present can make these phantoms emerge on film, implying and foreshadowing that Allerdale Hall--called "Crimson Peak", as the iron comes up and stains the snow blood red in winter--might have some kind of elemental pull toward the supernatural. A film which Crimson Peak also makes several allusions to is Stanley Kubrick's The Shining in more than a couple of scenes, such as a ghost in a bathtub and a climactic confrontation amid a snowbound estate which most definitely has had a trace of more than a few bad memories left behind. Crimson Peak also recalls horror movie classics like The Haunting, in that the aged and decrepit house which hosts several ghosts reveals its secreted away past to Edith in more than a few ways. Crimson Peak is unmistakably a horror film, but one which thrives on the blood of its predecessors and towers above on the shoulders of giants.
Recommended for: Horror movie enthusiasts who enjoy a chilling story of ghosts and 19th century gothic terror. For those who have been raised on horror films, this is like mother's milk, and carries the high-level of technical expertise and production value associated with its talented engineer.
Thomas and Lucille appear as though out of some gothic tale themselves, looking not unlike a vampiric pair of fraternal twins, Lucille in her blood-red evening dress and Thomas, a master of waltzes and eloquence, not unlike a prince of darkness. Perhaps this is a part of what attracts Edith to Thomas, that allure of darkness, even though he appears as the consummate gentleman by and large. Thomas performs to Edith's fantasies of what her dashing gothic hero should be; their scenes of romance are intense and passionate, and awaken a love which Edith concealed from herself. Ironically, her own story of horror ends up with moments of romance, the same kind which Thomas indicates to her that her horror novel would benefit without such sentimentality, the same kind which he exploits to draw her into his world. Edith is attracted to his darkness, not unlike Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is attracted to Mr. Rochester, like a moth to a flame; even a mad woman runs rampant in the upstairs attic. When tragedy strikes, Edith and Thomas' relationship is reinforced when they move to Allerdale Hall, and Edith begins to support Thomas in his invention to mine the red clay from his home and sell it to rebuild the Sharpe Estate. But her new home is a corpse of a manor, with massive holes allowing the leaves and snow to get in, and creaking boards and rattling pipes making moans and death rattles. The increasingly cold and menacing new home for Edith is also accompanied by manifestations of crimson, skeletal specters which skulk and wail in the throes of eternal agony. Though Edith acknowledges that she has always seen ghosts, one might wonder if these ghosts are not mere figments of her imagination, such as it is with other gothic ghost stories of the 19th century, like Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw", where a governess is driven mad with the belief that there are ghosts surrounding her. Further alluding to Crimson Peak's literary background, Edith's friend, Dr. Alan McMichael (Charlie Hunnam), is a fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and he shows her images in one scene of photographic depictions of ghosts. He claims that, in some places, something about the minerals and other elements present can make these phantoms emerge on film, implying and foreshadowing that Allerdale Hall--called "Crimson Peak", as the iron comes up and stains the snow blood red in winter--might have some kind of elemental pull toward the supernatural. A film which Crimson Peak also makes several allusions to is Stanley Kubrick's The Shining in more than a couple of scenes, such as a ghost in a bathtub and a climactic confrontation amid a snowbound estate which most definitely has had a trace of more than a few bad memories left behind. Crimson Peak also recalls horror movie classics like The Haunting, in that the aged and decrepit house which hosts several ghosts reveals its secreted away past to Edith in more than a few ways. Crimson Peak is unmistakably a horror film, but one which thrives on the blood of its predecessors and towers above on the shoulders of giants.
Recommended for: Horror movie enthusiasts who enjoy a chilling story of ghosts and 19th century gothic terror. For those who have been raised on horror films, this is like mother's milk, and carries the high-level of technical expertise and production value associated with its talented engineer.