Crimson Peak

CRIMSON PEAK

Director : Guillermo Del Toro
Year : 2015
Genre : Gothic Romance
Rating : ****1/2

You would be led to believe in watching the trailer to 'Crimson Peak' that it is a spooky ghost tale; full of jumps, creepy imagery and scary set pieces. In fact, it bears more resemblance to the archetypal gothic romance novels of the 19th century than the gory traditions of Hammer - a much more sophisticated tale of twisted love rather than a horrifying story of vengeance-seeking spirits and retribution from beyond the grave. This is hardly uprising as director Guillermo Del Toro, who returns to the horror genre after an almost decade absence, has subverted audience expectations and generic presumptions ever since his first film 'Cronos', a beautiful story of ageing and death disguised as a vampire movie. Whether it be the haunting beauty of 'The Devil's Backbone' or the macabre majesty of 'Pan's Labyrinth', Del Toro has proved himself time and time again to be one of the world's most visionary and (ironically) humane directors and 'Crimson Peak' sees the great Mexican auteur at the very height of his artistic powers. It is a gorgeously shot and wonderfully told saga that manages to walk the very thin tightrope of the gothic and the giallo with precision and ruthless care. 

Mia Wasikowska stars as Emily Cushing (a surname that betrays the movie's Hammer heritage), an aspiring horror writer who is wooed by the ambitious Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), a British engineer who has come to America with his introvert sister Lucille (wonderfully played by a Jessica Chastain channeling 'Rebecca's Mrs. Danvers) to seek investment for his revolutionary clay mining machine. However, after failing to get the money he so sorely needs and after the violent death of her father, Emily is whisked away from the States by the increasingly erratic Thomas to the barren fields of Cumberland, England. Here they make their residence in the slowly decaying Allerdale Hall whose crumbling foundations are gradually sinking into the surrounding red clay lending it it's ominous titular epithet. However, as the house begins to reveal it's supernatural tendencies and as her new husband and sister-in-law's actions become more and more unpredictable, Emily slowly comes to realise that it may not be the ghostly inhabitants of Allerdale Hall that could be the most dangerous.

As is the case with every Del Toro movie, 'Crimson Peak' looks utterly stunning - thanks in most part to cinematographer Dan Laustsen (who lent his beautifully evocative eye to Del Toro's own 'Mimic') who manages to find incredible beauty in the vermilion and chartreuse palette of Thomas E. Sanders sumptuously gothic designs. The angular staircases and gloomy, candle-lit corridors of Allerdale Hall all help to add to the brooding atmosphere of 'Crimson Peak' and the velvet yet ominous underscoring by renowned Spanish composer Fernando Velasquez accentuates the darkness of Del Toro's brutal yet beautiful vision.

With it's incredibly detailed sets, an extraordinary use of colour and the directorial eye of one of the greatest living film makers, 'Crimson Peak' is one of the best and most indelible viewing experiences I have had this year. Gothic romance makes way for bloody carnage and from it's spooky prelude to it's violent finale set in the scarlet snow, I was utterly transfixed. As someone who adores both the macabre predilections of Edgar Allan Poe and the more gothic sensibilities of Stoker, Bronte and Shelley, 'Crimson Peak' is the movie I have been waiting for for quite some time and serves as the resurrection of a noble horror tradition that has all but been killed by the mainstream fare in both cinema and literature of the past half century.