Crimson Peak : Movie Review


Crimson Peak (2015) - Movie Poster
24-year-old Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) wants nothing more than to be published, but as a single woman and aspiring writer living in the late-19th century she finds it difficult to be taken seriously. When her work is written off as a ghost story, she is quick to correct that it is a story with ghosts in it; the supernatural elements merely serve as a metaphor for loss, betrayal and broken dreams. This same sentiment accurately describes the gushingly gorgeous "Crimson Peak," writer-director Guillermo del Toro's (2013's "Pacific Rim") phantasmagoric gothic romance. Co-penned by Matthew Robbins (2011's "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark"), the film's spectral visitations bring ominous window-dressing and haunting suggestion to a plot where the gravest horrors are committed by the still very much living and breathing.

When her beloved father (Jim Beaver) meets a grisly end, Edith is stripped of the last loved one of her known bloodline. In her grief, she is comforted by new suitor Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), a down-on-his-luck baronet who welcomes her to come stay with him and elder sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain) at their late family's decaying British estate Allerdale Hall. The ornate mansion has long fallen into disrepair—the floors and ceilings are eroding as the structure slowly sinks into the deep-red stone of the earth—but Thomas and Lucille are emotionally tied to the place, adamant about wanting to remain where their late parents once walked. As the paranormally sensitive Edith will soon discover, Lady Sharpe (Doug Jones) is still roaming around, the mysterious circumstances of her death trapping her on the infertile grounds.

See Dustin Putman, TheFilmFile.com. for full review

Author : Dustin Putman, TheFilmFile.com