Review of Crimson Peak (2015) by Buddah — 16 Oct 2015

Sometimes you go to a movie where most of the main characters are so unlikable that it turns you off from the movie itself. I think Crimson Peak is one such movie. Our lead character is introduced to us as a somewhat snooty debutante who is withdrawn from the world around her and seems to have no friends. The one friend and possible love interest that she could have is returning back home to start his doctor practice, He is the good looking, Charlie Hunman from Sons of Anarchy. Yet our fickled debutante rather chase her dreams as a writer than let the one man who obviously has affection for her chase her. It seems his mother thinks she is nit worthy, so that is that. Her Dad is himself rich, controlling and a bit of an pompous asshat. In steps an English inventor who charms the heroine by complimenting her writing stylings after eyeballing her manuscript after 5-10 seconds. The Dad hates the guy for some unknown reason and of course the inventor can't resist mixing business with pleasure and decides to court the debutante. Then we have the inventor's Sister who oozes hate with every scene, so we as the audience know she is going to bad news for the debutante.

I am a fan of Guillermo Del Toro's The Strain TV's best horror show, even better than Walking Dead in my opinion. In fact it is the best take on the history of the vampire ever to be told. That for me is a huge compliment since I love horror in general. So my expectations were high because Del Toro really wanted to recreate a haunted house story. The problem is this lacks emotion. The characters are not worth rooting for or even against. The house itself is falling apart, red clay is oozing from the decaying foundation, the roof has a giant hole in it at the very center of the house, and the walls are peeling. Yet there is something very cool about what you first perceive as a beautiful Gothic mansion until the camera pans above to show the falling leaves and butterflies coming from the giant opening. Unfortunately for the script the story is still about the characters - debutante, inventor and evil sister, The house is just a vessel that carries the past like a rotting diary might. We have ghastly visitations for our debutante from opening scene to final scene, but who cares? The movie fails completely to get us to care about anything.