Crimson Peak a Boo

crimson peak posterRipe; that’s what Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak is. Ripe like a red grapefruit, soggy with sticky juice. Ripe like a corpse stashed in the summer attic, thick with flies. Ripe like William Shatner, told to play it subtle but somehow, inexplicably, still stripping off his shirt and howling at the heavens.

Ripe with color and texture and Gothic romance that might as well be blood lust. Ripe.

Mia Wasikowska plays Edith, an independent woman of intelligence, teetering on the verge of her emotional awakening. It’s a part that pairs well with her turn in Park Chan-Wook’s Stoker. Edith lives with her father in Buffalo, New York, where she’s writing a story that has ghosts in it, but which isn’t a ghost story.

Crimson-Peak-Guillermo-del-Toro-Mia-WasikowskaGet it? Or is Crimson Peak too subtle for you?

But If Crimson Peak is too subtle for you, perhaps you might wish to invest in some one-on-one time with a brain surgeon? For Crimson Peak is as subtle as Donald Trump after a quadruple habanero espresso.

Into this wound-tight society drops Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) and his sister, Lady Lucille (Jessica Chastain). They seek funding for their contraption what mines the blood-red clay that burbles beneath their ancestral manor back in Old Blighty. Edith’s pop (Jim Beaver) smells a rat, but Edith is too observant to notice anything — it’s all too subtle for her heightened senses. She sees Sir Thomas’ worn clothes and his fluid dance steps and, sure, ghosts — but notices not a jot of inner wretchedness. Edith does not even notice Sir Tom’s sister’s uncanny resemblance to an Edward Gorey illustration.

jessica-chastain-crimson-peakE is for Edith, murdered for money

F is for Charlie Hunnam, who isn’t funny. And who generally deserves an F for his complete lack of screen presence.

Here’s a hint. If you don’t have a lot of acting gusto in you, maybe decline a role in Guillermo del Toro’s ripe ride through spectrally-infused romance? For yes, this is a story that has ghosts in it, but which isn’t a ghost story. Those ghosts — bloody red and insubstantially smokey — crawl from tubs and slither down hallways and generally fail to respect Edith’s privacy.

allerdale hallBut then, marrying Sir Thomas despite the warning signs, it was her choice to live in Allerdale Hall, an ancestral home that lacks a roof, anything resembling pesticide, or a patch of wall unadorned by flocked wallpaper, intricate carvings, or peeling, crumbling, rotting texture. Allderdale Hall is like a smoker’s lung, if that smoker only smoked the wings of faeries.

See, Crimson Tide is ripe. It isn’t particularly scary, or deep, or even novel, but it is plenty ripe and quite enjoyable. It is an excuse to take your eyes out and show them where be monsters. Guillero del Toro has vision and zero reservations about sharing it with us all. He’s been scheming and waiting and plotting. His ideas, they are now ripe.

Not over ripe. Just deliciously ripe, hanging on the edge of rotten, at the apex of sweetness.

tom hiddleston crimson peak

Watch Crimson Peak and delight in its insanely rich design. Bathe in its blood and let its cackles reverberate around your skull. Enjoy its lush monstrosity, as did I.

2 responses on “Crimson Peak a Boo

  1. My love for GDT’s Spanish language films, especially Pan’s Labyrinth will mean that I will always look forward to whatever he makes.

    I liked this, just about anyway. My favourite thing about it was the period setting, I was turning to my Wife at the beginning and saying ‘It’s Downton Abbey with ghosts!’. The acting overall is great. I like Mia Wasikowska more and more these days.You know you’re going to get a gorgeous looking film from Del Toro but strangely for a horror film Crimson Peak has no flesh on it’s bones. There’s nothing to really think about. There’s no subtext to think about.

    Because of it’s lack of subtlety Crimson Peak is almost a children’s film, if it wasn’t for the murder scene at the beginning and the resulting corpse with head smashed in, I think this might have got away with being a 12 cert over in the UK. When I view it like that’s it sort of gets better… I wasn’t annoyed by this… It’s more disappointment really. I expect more from him. I know he’s capable of it.

    There’s a haunting and sorrowful quality to Del Toro’s Spanish language films that hasn’t yet translated across to his English language films. I wonder if it ever will. Maybe it’s one of those things where a person can’t express themselves truly in their second language?

    • Or, perhaps, he’s interested in different things now? I think no one can claim he didn’t get to do what he wanted with this one.

      But yes. Subtlety was not his aim here. More grandiosity.

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