Crimson Peak movie review

But, as star Jessica Chastain (who completely steals the movie, by the way) told us, there’s actually more to Allerdale Hall, the haunted house at the center of the film, than you might even be aware. On many levels, del Toro’s films simply fail to connect, which is again a major problem with his pseudo-Gothic horror entry “Crimson Peak”. Del Toro took the classic haunted house genre and made it look spectacular.

Mia Wasikowska plays Edith Cushing, the smart, ambitious only daughter of Carter Cushing, played by Jim Beaver (Supernatural, Deadwood).

An impecunious British baronet called Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) visits Buffalo, New York to seek funding for his clay extraction machine.

“Thomas Sharpe is dashing and mysterious – I suppose you’re not quite sure about him”.

As well played as Edith and Sharpe are by Wasikowska and Hiddleston, Chastain’s turn as Edith’s piano-playing sister-in-law, Lady Lucille Sharpe, is a rare misstep for the Oscar-nominated actress. As Edith acclimatises to her surroundings, she unwittingly stumbles upon dark secrets.

Things are not be as they seem, and Edith may ultimately find that ghosts are not the greatest threat or potential source of peril she will face. These sunny sequences happen before Mia Wasikowska’s young American heiress travels to England with her new husband. Why is she seeing these odd entities? But the rather ordinary violence in the film’s bloody, blade-slashing, head-bashing fights mostly lack imagination.

Crimson Peak is a solid film and gets a 3.5 raindrops out of 5. What is also a shame is that there are many scenes that should have been scary but instead came off as cool looking but the fear just wasn’t there for this writer. Del Toro fans are bound to be a little disappointed by the flat storyline, but the film’s ambience will definitely get you in the mood for the season. “It’s always the people that kind of cause the most damage in his films”.

This elevates the overall film since the script can be pretty much by the numbers 80% of the time. His Pan’s Labyrinth was hailed for how it incorporated elements of fantasy and horror, creating an alternate reality, to underscore an important point about General Franco’s fascist repression in Spain during and after World War II.

Del Toro said of the film in a recent interview, “It has fairy tale overtones in a few instances, but is a gothic romance”. Creepiness has never looked so good.

“I think the first time I walked in there were already leaves falling through the ceiling, and if you stepped on a particular floor board, this red clay would seep and ooze out from underneath”.