This one really caught me off-guard. Having lost faith in Guillermo Del Toro in his slightly questionable Hollywood period - his last feature being the dismally written Pacific Rim - I fully expected Crimson Peak to be a campy phantasmagoria of empty special effects. But it is nothing of the sort: Del Toro is back on form, and he has crafted a rich and disturbing Gothic chiller to be ranked with the best of his work.
The film follows pure-hearted heroine Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska, pale but steely), a woman who has always been haunted by ghosts: she was visited by her mother after her funeral, who simply delivered the warning, "Beware of Crimson Peak." She pores these interests into fiction, yet most loutish eighteenth-century men only see fit to compliment her on her handwriting. Only the handsome English stranger, Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), seems to understand that a ghost story is about more than its spectral shapes - it is what they represent that matters, a sad or painful past that chains them indefinitely to the world of mortals.
Thomas eventually marries Edith - her father, an obstacle, brutally beaten to death in his washroom by a mysterious assailant - and whisks her away to England, and to his dilapidated mansion. As anyone who has ever spent a night in Shropshire will testify, it's a bleak fate being resigned to such a remote corner of the world, with little for Edith do but wander the halls and play fetch with an irritating, yappy dog. The mansion is a real fixer-upper, too - Del Toro brings to life a world where snow filters down from patchwork roofs, moths flutter across its walls, and even blood oozes from the very floorboards. (Apparently it's some abnormally red clay.) Worse still is the prospect of sharing a house with Thomas' sister, Lady Lucille Sharpe (Jessica Chastain), who is so icy that her breath practically frosts glass. Nevertheless, Edith sets about discovering the dark mysteries of her environment - one she later learns has been given the unfortunate nickname "Crimson Peak"...
Never a stranger to genre fiction, Del Toro fully embraces the tropes of eighteenth century horror with the infectious enthusiasm of a dedicated fan. Yet never does this get in the way of the masterfully constructed narrative, whose mysteries and tricks are steadily leaked through an enveloping wall of haunted house atmosphere. I described it as a "chiller" earlier in that, in spite of a few moments, for an audience raised on Paranormal Activity and The Conjuring, it's not particularly scary, per say. But Del Toro realises that there's more to a horror film than making the audience jump out of their seats: and instead of relying on basic jump scares, he opts to disturb with bloody set-pieces and monster design, and with some delightfully nasty psychosexual connections between his characters. (Freud would have a field day.)
Some have suggested that the film is old-fashioned, even lacking any kind of surprise in its storytelling. But I found that it went through the motions with such earnestness and beauty that I couldn't help but be swept along by it. Also, I think it furthers the notion that Del Toro is one of the only storytellers around who truly understands ghosts and the stories we tell about them. One could pair this with The Devil's Backbone, a film that contained a wonderful description of a ghost: "A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again ... Something dead which still seems to be alive. An emotion suspended in time. Like a blurred photograph. Like an insect trapped in amber." Hollywood might not be Del Toro's immediate comfort zone, but films like Crimson Peak show that he hasn't lost his soul amidst the madness - and that he can still tell a ripping good yarn.
★★★★½
