Director: Guillermo del Toro (USA, Mexico). Year of Release: 2015
Buffalo New York, the late 19th Century. As a female voice tells us that ghosts are real and that she was first visited by her mother’s ghost when she was 10, we watch the young Edith Cushing going through exactly this experience. She is in her bedroom when an animated version of mom whooshes through the door and tells her to be wary of Crimson Peak. To be honest, I felt the ghost to be a little superfluous to the narrative, but it sure looked impressive.
14 years later, Edith is an aspiring novelist. She has yet to be published, as her (male) publisher thinks that there should be more romance. Edith prefers to write what she insists are not ghost stories but stories with ghosts in them. The ghost, she says, is just a metaphor for the past. When a snidey society lady compares Edith to Jane Austen, who died a spinster, Edith says that he role model is rather Mary Shelley, who died a widow. There is a lot of Shelley in Edith.
Typing up her novel in her father’s factory, Edith crosses swords with Thomas Sharpe, a British baronet. While others are not sure what a baronetcy is, Edith explains that its a bauble awarded for exploiting poor people. Dad, a former builder turned self-made millionaire, is equally unimpressed. When Sharpe asks for money to help finance a machine for extracting ore from the ground, Cushing rejects him because his soft hands show that he is unacquainted with hard work.
Unlike Austen’s young debutantes, who are eager to be paired off, Edith tends to avoid social events. Despite the insistent pleading of her father, she gives the local dance a miss, until Baronet Sharpe comes calling and she feels obliged to tag on. When asked to show people how to waltz, he overlooks the simpering society belles and chooses Edith as his partner. Accompanied by Thomas’s sister Lucille on the piano, they tear up the dance floor, while holding a lit candle in their hands.
As Thomas starts to make moves on Edith, her father has lost none of his initial mistrust, and hires a detective to find out the baronet’s dodgy past. When the detective does provide evidence of past misdemeanours, Cushing summons him into his office, and offers him a large amount of money. There are 2 conditions. He must leave New York State immediately, and he must break Edith’s heart by telling her that her writing is sentimental drivel. Thomas duly complies.
Mr. Cushing is habitually the first person to arrive at his gentleman’s club. One morning, while shaving, he is bludgeoned to death in the most gorgeous assault that you are likely to see on screen. The flow of crimson blood beautifully offsets the pristine white bathroom, especially the sink, which now has a chunk missing where Cushing’s head has been repeatedly battered. We never get enough of a glimpse of Cushing’s attacker to know whodunnit.
It’s not long before Thomas has proposed to Edith and whisked her away to Allerdale Hall. his Hammer horror castle in Cumberland. Whereas the States is buzzing with bright innovation Allerdale is stuck in the past. Because the Sharpes have no money (these things are relative, they still employ servants), there is a hole in the roof through which leaves fall in the Autumn and snow in the Winter. Outside the soil is red with mineral ore, giving the place its nickname Crimson Peak.
The castle has many levels – from Thomas’s work room in the attic full of home made toys to the mine in the cellar, full containing crimson liquid ore. They are all connected by a rickety lift, which adds to the building’s Gothic charm. Edith is unable to view everything. Very early on, she asks if she can have a copy of the keys that Lucille carries around with her on a jailer’s key ring, only to be told that there are rooms here that might shock her, so its best not to give her access quite yet.
It is around this time that we finally learn the dirt that Cushing dug up on Thomas. Let’s just say that he is not wholly motivated by spousal devotion, and that Edith is not the first Lady Sharpe. Working in tandem with Lucille, Thomas intends to do away with his wife just as soon as she’s signed over all her late father’s wealth. As they constantly ply her with poisoned tea, Edith starts puking crimson blood into the pristine white sink.
Everything, from Edith’s surname to the imposing building, purposefully evokes old British horror films, albeit with a much bigger budget and sharper photography. And if that were all, it would be fine, but no great innovation. Yet, Crimson Peak is able to deliver a number of images which imprint themselves on your brain. from Edith wondering round the mansion in a crimson-stained white nightdress to the imposing and threatening manufacturing equipment outside the house.
I feared that the film was taking a misstep when – despite her stated objection to inherited wealth and privilege – Edith is seduced by Thomas’s charm (though this may be partly because I was always a bit turned off by a posh accent and good manners). But this is a film which is neither in thrall to the British aristocracy, nor to their more vulgar nouveaux riches US American equivalents. While it tones down on the class war after the opening scenes at least it does not desert the cause.
I have read reviews which are dissatisfied that Crimson Peak is not scary enough. Well, it depends on what you want from a film. I was always less bothered about scariness for its own sake than with the elegance in which the scare is delivered. And Crimson Peak has elegance in spades. It looks great, has the right blend of sinister and weird, and while not being exactly plausible, is consistent within its own logic. I’d never seen it before today and regret missing it first time round.
CinePhil 