Crimson Peak:
Aspiring young author Edith is the daughter of a successful businessman in Buffalo, New York. She is courted and wooed by the mysterious baronet Sir Thomas Sharpe, and his sister Lucille, and she is married to him and taken to his England estate. However, Edith can also see ghosts, and they begin to warn her of a place called "Crimson Peak". Edith tries to forget these warnings, but as her new husband and sister-in-law grow increasingly distant and suspicious, and these nightly ghost appearances grow more frightening, she realizes there may be more to this estate and her new husband.
Guillermo del Toro, whatever one's opinion of him is, cannot be denied to have a keen visual eye. He is a master of lighting, impressive sets and costumes, and of cinematography. The look of this film evokes memories of Hammer Horror and Bram Stoker's Dracula from 1992. It even matches the idea from those films of having romance take priority over the horror aspects. However, in terms of quality, this film comes nowhere close to those. The primary color palate is green, red, and black, which is funny, considering there's a scene which talks about color blindness and its' lack of reds and greens, almost acknowledging that people with color blindness will not fully see the best part of this movie: the imagery.
The special effects are pretty good, even if the CG is overutilized. Some of the ghosts are menacing, others feel a little silly.
Mia Wasikowska is a decent lead, but feels a little wooden at times. Tom Hiddleston, while good to see him get away from the Loki character, starts strong but slowly his character becomes way too predictable. Jessica Chastain is laughably over-the-top evil, and there's, again, no mystery for her character despite the film supposedly being a mystery. She's obviously a villain from the start. Charlie Hunnam, Burn Gorman, and Jim Beaver are strong supporting characters, even if they are, also, pretty cliched. Doug Jones has some roles as ghosts in the film. It's cool to see del Toro still casting his buddies in small parts when the part fits them.
The plot starts pretty strong, and the first half was investing. But the middle tries to build slow tension, but ultimately feels like it just drags on, as it quickly becomes evident of what's going on. The climax packs in a completely cliched and predictable twist, but the final confrontation is entertaining, if not exactly scary. There's some brutal kills/attempted kills in the movie that just look like they hurt and make you cringe. Guillermo always seems to pull off those moments better than most directors, at least in the mainstream. One particular stab had one man in my theater screaming "Jesus Christ!" completely out loud in my small, and mostly empty screening.
Crimson Peak isn't exactly what I would call a scary, or even really suspenseful movie, bu it's a solid and mostly entertaining one with some chilling imagery and excellent period sets, costumes, and vibrant colors. There's some pretty violent scenes at the beginning and the end to keep things from getting too dull and to keep the stakes high, but ultimately, this isn't as good as del Toro can be. 6/10 stars.
Edit- November 11, 2015: the ghosts in the film were accomplished using mostly practical effects, not CGI as I had thought, though they look like it.
(Image: Wikipedia)
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