When to Close Your Eyes During Crimson Peak

“But the Gothic isn’t really frightening in the sense that a ghost story is frightening… it’s more of a psychological haunting”.

So yeah, Crimson Peak isn’t a horror. A sought-after beauty, Edith is more interested in writing ghost novels than landing a husband, much to the disappointment of local physician Dr. Alan McMichael (Hunnam). You are in the house and he creates the environment for you to do the work and everything becomes real in a way, but safe. Ghosts occasionally show up to point out clues. However, when one leaves the theater it will be surprising to realize this is far from a horror movie.

It begins as a romance in early 20th century Buffalo, New York, where well-born Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) eschews all suitors as she struggles to be taken seriously as a novelist. Joining a long line of romantic leading men with ulterior motives, Hiddleston balances his character’s charm and malevolence with the best of them. Most eerily, the movie’s name comes from the Estate’s infamous nickname: The red clay seeps through the snow, giving the appearance of blood coming out of the ground.

A tragic event pushes Cushing into Sharpe’s arms and they Wednesday.

The movie settles into a “Notorious“-like plot where Edith is slowly poisoned while unearthing the Sharpe family secrets”. When compared to spinster Jane Austen, she coolly replies she’d rather be “Frankenstein” author Mary Shelley, “who died a widow”.

You want to see this amazingness from the side? Blowing into town one day to peddle a few sort of construction contraption are the dashing and mysterious Sharpe siblings – Thomas (Hiddleston) and Lucille (Chastain).

We caught up with Jim just a couple of days before the film’s release, and here’s what he had to say about how he came onto the project and working with the visual master.

Completing this unusual trio is Chastain, whose performance isn’t over-the-top enough to suggest the pure insanity of the character.

Anyone hoping Crimson Peak might have been the breakout title for the perennially scene-stealing Hiddleston (best known as Loki from the Thor and Avengers sagas) is going to be left wanting yet again.

Advertising for the film suggests this is a nonstop ride into terror.

The ghosts here don’t have much to do, narratively speaking – it’s a shame, as del Toro’s ghosts in Crimson Peak are fantastic, dripping red skeletons with plumes of smoke curling from their fingers – but act as commentary on the nature of memory’s construction.

The film is being hyped as coming from the creative talent behind “Pan’s Labyrinth”, a film by del Toro that was an incredibly creative look at the weird.

However, while the melodramatic screenplay by del Toro and Matthew Robbins (Mimic) hints at deeper issues such as feminism and socioeconomic class amid its period backdrop, the film too often feels stuffy and pretentious like its aristocratic characters.