Review: CRIMSON PEAK

CRIMSON PEAK  (MYSTERY-HORROR/ROMANTIC-DRAMA)
3.5 of of 4 stars
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, Charlie Hunnam, Jim Beaver, Burn Gorman, Leslie Hope, Doug Jones, Jonathan Hyde, Bruce Gray, Emil Coutts
Rated R for bloody violence, some sexual content and brief strong language.
119 minutes
Verdict: Visually sublime and emotionally satisfying, Guillermo del Toro's classically-styled haunted house story is a beautiful, bloody, Gothic soap opera.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN CRIMSON PEAK IF YOU LIKED:
THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE  (2001)
PAN'S LABYRINTH  (2006)
THE INNOCENTS  (1961)
REBECCA  (1940)
THE SHINING  (1980)

Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is one of the most talented creators of pop film art working today, and one of my favorite directors in general.  His undeniable speciality is in "monsters", monsters of many kinds, human and otherworldly; how they relate to us, what they say about us, and what we see in them on a subconscious level.  Outside of the certain controlling, rigidly methodical, ideological human characters that are a consistent monstrous presence in his films, the literal monsters of his works are most typically ghosts and vampires.  Ghosts typically represent the past, and vampires typically represent devourers of life forces, like obsessive control and fear.  The natural abode of such monsters, especially in the way del Toro treats them, is the fairy tale, as such, with the partial exception of his most recent and slightly disappointing (albeit entertaining) directorial feature, PACIFIC RIM, his movies are all fairy tales.  They're about innocents, usually children- other times, childlike characters- navigating a world of genuine evil that strives for immortality, but the moral good (complex though even the 'good' may be) achieves that immortality without even looking for it.  CRIMSON PEAK follows in the beautiful, romantic spirit of del Toro's best films, but blends with the boisterous entertainment value and pastiche of PACIFIC RIM and BLADE II, and it's very, very gruesome. 
Set in 1901, Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska, best known as the titular character of Tim Burton's 2010 ALICE IN WONDERLAND) is a young aspiring author in New York City and daughter of a widowed industrialist, when she is unexepectedly swept off of her feet by baronet Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston, ideally cast in a role that was initially cast with Benedict Cumberbatch), a broke aristocrat visiting from England in hopes of obtaining funding for a mining enterprise.  She marries the baronet and moves with him to derelict Sharpe family estate of Allerdale, known locally as "Crimson Peak" for the abundant red clay rich in the utisol useful for brickmaking, the mining of which Thomas hopes will recuperate the family fortune his parents squandered.  They also live with his terse, mysterious sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain, who is marvelously sinister and passionate) who manages the household and, with her brother, hides the dark secrets of Allerdale that harbor terrifying specters which Edith begins to see upon her arrival.

Del Toro draws heavily upon iconic haunted house movies like REBECCA and THE INNOCENTS, as well as the works of Arthur Conan Doyle, for his story, which is a standard but fun Gothic horror scenario that serves as the canvas for his gorgeous visual poetry and soapy but nonetheless swooning, moving melodrama.  It's more closely related to his independent Spanish-language films than his Hollywood work, THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE in particular, which is referenced specifically in one image, but it's doesn't tie together quite as neatly as those.  It has a similar soul, but brings with it Grand Guignol thrills that those films were too restrained for.  Although CRIMSON PEAK is almost as much romance as it is horror, it's more closely identifiable as horror than any of his previous films except perhaps MIMIC, his problematic Hollywood debut that was ultimately taken from him by the studio, Miramax.  It's also possibly his most gruesome film (the only other contender is BLADE II, which has plenty of action-oriented gore), and brings to mind an apparent del Toro preoccupation with the violent disfiguration of human faces (on top of scenes in CRONOS, THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE and PAN'S LABYRINTH), with horrific but also strangely elegant savagery.  It's not scary as much as it is deliciously spooky and atmospheric, which doesn't necessarily mean it's not a "horror movie"; there's certainly no shortage of homage to classic Gothic horror.
Like all of del Toro's films, CRIMSON PEAK is a sublime visual tapestry, and would be well-deserving in the art direction and costume categories in the upcoming awards season.  Blood and blood-like imagery are prominent throughout; scarlet gowns, red-jeweled rings, and most of all, the vibrant red clay of Crimson Peak, into which the crumbling ruins of Allerdale are slowly sinking as the bloody mud oozes up through the floorboards like the dark past coming back to claim the house.  Del Toro's new film is not a terribly complex narrative; it's a sumptuous and aggressive but simple soap opera with ghosts, and as appealing as that is in itself, there are numerous rich stories layered throughout the visuals.  It's so beautiful and rich in emotion, it's entrancing.