Review of Crimson Peak (2015) by George R — 11 Feb 2016

Other than the beautiful wardrobe, brilliant production values, gorgeous color schemes (Del Toro used the color Yellow flawlessly in this movie; a severely underused & underrated color I believe), & excellent visuals, this is the first time I've ever been fully disappointed by a film done by Guillermo. The film was a completely lost potential, & has a gargantuan amount of missed opportunities Del Toro didn't take advantage of. This, it's flawed script, inconsistent story, & nasty characters (with some boring development) also bring the film down. It doesn't deliver what it announced itself for at all.

We snuck into the first 20 minutes of The Martian before heading to watch this one, & we were a lot more entertained & on the edge of our seats by The Martian in those 20 minutes than any of the time watching Crimson Peak. One of the saddest things here, other than it's numerous plot holes & inconsistencies, is how ***SPOILER*** the film fails to even give you an explanation or conclusion to what the Crimson Peak the lead character's mother so persistently warned her about. ***SPOILER END***.

Was it scary? When it needed to be, most definitely. Was it good? Not so much. The film is severely underwhelming in terms of storytelling, given that the film is riddled with plot holes, inconsistencies, & doesn't even reach it's full potential. It's not much of a real ghost story anymore after the first 30 minutes or so.

Again, I will praise Del Toro for using the color yellow, & his astonishment with the color prior to the movie thanks to one of his friends who got him into seeing its use (not only for being my favorite color, but also because it's such a wonderful color that gives lush luminescence & a sense of awareness in the movie, especially contrasting with the movie's other much darker tones), but the film itself was a complete waste of time. I am a guy who has always had an eye for visual brilliance in films (be it practical or digital effects, costumes, makeup, architecture, etc.), but I don't let that get in the way of seeing how bad a film can be, & sadly Crimson Peak falls into that visually brilliant bad film category.

I truly hope Del Toro doesn't let his visual genius get into his head & take the Shayamalan plummet, because he's too much of a genius to go down so badly.