‘Crimson Peak’ Review: Perfumed nightmares

Arthur Conan Doyle famously coined the phrase “Where there is no imagination there is no horror” in his 1887 Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet. Interestingly, Doyle is mentioned briefly in Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak where failed novelist and heiress Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) teases her failed admirer and physician Alan McMichael (Charlie Hunnam) of his taste in literature.

As it turns out, the film could have bore more than a brief resemblance to Doyle’s mystery novel. In the film, Alan finds himself in the shoes of the famous detective when Edith’s father (Jim Beaver) is violently murdered, leaving Edith to marry debonair baronet Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), and there’s also her sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain). They turn out to be more than just the elegantly ruined aristocrats they purport to be.

The film has the makings of an elaborate murder mystery, with the dashing doctor as the lead and troubled Edith as the damsel in distress.

However, Del Toro has other things in mind. He spins the story around, putting his detail-hungry perspective on the intelligent but oddly romantic lass who finds herself trapped in a fable about a haunted house built on a mountain as red as romance.

Both victim and heroine

Crimson Peak has the feel of classic literature. Its movements are precise. Its characters tread paths that only an intelligent author can devise. Del Toro however twists the tale to suit contemporary needs without completely dismantling all the essential tropes. He does not see the need to reinvent the wheel and instead subverts the genre to bow down to his artistic desires.

So it is Edith who finds herself as both the victim and the heroine in her story. She follows the traditional setup of being seduced into a marriage of nefarious convenience only to end up in the middle of nowhere, imprisoned inside a neglected manor where phantoms roam bearing the ghastly sins of the past. 

 

 

She succumbs to love, just like everybody else in the film, and pays dearly for it. Right from the start, she laments the lot of women, blaming her feminine handwriting for all the rejections her romantic ghost stories garnered.

Yet there she is, predictably falling head over heels for a princely Brit, just like all the commoners in the countless fairy tales that only reinforce the antiquated notion that women need men to survive, which in a way is the common misconception that allows men like Thomas to take advantage of heedless girls.

Beneath initial appearances is the real score. Midway through, Crimson Peak takes the tale into a direction where roles are reversed without them straying too far from the source. Edith does not transform into a brave woman, the proper poster girl for feminist agendas, but her actions reflect a design that treats her not as witless martyr but as a determined survivor. 

Gorgeous ghost story

See, Crimson Peak isn’t just a gorgeous ghost story. It is not an outdated tale of sadistic men and their fragile women. There is more to the extravagant designs and the erstwhile scares than just wily distractions to an otherwise empty vessel. Del Toro has actually crafted an intelligent story that frames modern sensibilities within characters that fit the stereotypes that are common to the genre.

Of course, that does not stop the fact that everything else is worth admiring. Crimson Peak is absolutely stunning. It plays like an ornate picture book where each frame is an image of an alternate reality where even ugliness is ravishing. Cinematographer Dan Laustsen rightfully drowns the film in color, creating an otherworldly mood that makes the seemingly cartoonic wraiths fit in.

It is good that Del Toro does not bother to commit to making the film look as realistic as possible. The film works precisely because it banks on fertile imagination. It does away with the notion that horror works within the realm of the familiar. Crimson Peak turns the world into a fantastic set-piece of noisy doors, rotting floor boards, and velvety mud spewing out of walls, and despite its obvious distance with reality, it all works because the film understands that what humans fear the most is not the supernatural but the morbid excesses of the natural. 

Deceptively fragrant

Del Toro has a talent for creating beauty out of blatant ugliness. Crimson Peak is full of ghosts, frightfully disemboweled, with axes on their head, and blood gruesomely flowing out of their wiry limbs. The haunted house is a rickety mess where its forgotten glory only adds to the malevolent atmosphere.

The Sharpe siblings are pasty white, garbed in costumes that scream their fearsome desperation. Despite all the abject ghastliness, it is almost impossible not to look. Del Toro has made everything seductively lush. 

However, it is the extent of the depravities that the human characters are capable of that makes the film truly memorable. The film is much more than an unforgettable parade of grotesque details. It is an immersive dive into a melodramatic world full of all types of wickedness, all of which Del Toro perfumes with scents that demand attention. Interestingly, the most deceptively fragrant of all the film’s wickedness is love. It is impossible not to swoon. – Rappler.com

Francis Joseph Cruz litigates for a living and writes about cinema for fun. Thefirst Filipino movie he saw in the theaters was Carlo J. Caparas’ ‘Tirad Pass.’ Since then, he’s been on a mission to find better memories with Philippine cinema. Profile photo by Fatcat Studios