Guillermo del Toro’s new film lacks scares

After family tragedy strikes, Edith runs away to Northern England to marry handsome but somewhat vampiric outsider Sir Thomas Sharpe, played by Tom Hiddleston.

Likewise, Bustle said that Tom Hiddleston’s “Crimson Peak” sex scene became “so exciting” because “it’s part of a new wave of sex scenes in movies – ones initiated by, led by, and controlled by women”. The story slogs in the first third with the exception of a few patented del Toro extreme facial trauma and a ballroom dance that introduces the true star of the film, Lady Lucille, played by Jessica Chastain. Although she is shocked to the bone, Edith has no idea what this means until she moves into Allerdale Hall, Sharpe’s ominous gothic manor where the red clay dyes the snow a deep scarlet, hence the Crimson Peak title. An already strained relationship between brother and sister only worsens as Thomas falls for Edith and returns with her in tow to the Sharpes’ dilapidated estate, known to locals as Crimson Peak. I expected the director of 2006’s Pan’s Labyrinth to come through with the arresting, haunting images. The problem, though, is that “Crimson Peak” doesn’t quite succeed on either fronts.

“Crimson Peak” is an old-fashioned, brutal – and sometimes gory – Gothic horror film, romantic (with a big “R”), and monstrous.

Crimson Peak takes place in the 19th century, where puffy sleeves and puffy hair and puffy everything (minus ridiculously tight corsets, of course) were all the rage. The ghost story is underdeveloped (and not scary), the love story isn’t believable, and the resolution isn’t satisfying. It’s also one of the most attractive looking films you’ll see this year.

The turning point of the film is so predictable anyone with eyes and a semi-functioning attention span can guess what comes next. Cushing, an established business man, quickly rejects Thomas, but Edith doesn’t.

Teaira now resides in the Pacific Northwest, an office cube dweller by day, a foodie, independent bookstore seeker, horror scaredy cat at all other times. Still, the stereotype of the helpless girl is averted near the end, when, through trials and tribulations, Edith becomes the person she said she wanted to be at the beginning of the movie. Lucille remains trapped, not only in the vicious cycle of Crimson Peak but also in the tragic fate of a two-dimensional character. As we meet Edith as a young independent woman she is described as a spinster like Jane Austen. Reminiscent of the Stephen King story Rose Red, it’s a character in itself, with the red clay seeping from every crack and the house breathing and contorting as the drama continues. The acting is exceptional and the actors truly own their characters. It’s no surprise Hiddleston is familiar with Gothic elements and tragic plots. We all ache for Thomas – in our hearts and other unmentionable regions. But Edith is too busy falling to look down. Crimson Peak, like its Del Toro predecessors, is sumptuous and intricate in its look, sound and production but this time there is much more to analyse and discuss long after the blood has begun to brown and congeal.

The complexity of these performances is a credit to Del Toro. But even the lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek tone of the film couldn’t aid in sneaking the supernatural past the country’s censors, who aim to “control and cleanse the negative effect these items have on society, and to prevent horror, violent, cruel publications from entering the market through official channels and to protect adolescents’ psychological health”.