Review of Crimson Peak (2015) by Dillinger P — 22 Dec 2015

Guillermo Del Toro hasn't exactly been on a winning streak as of late, his less that stellar television show, The Strain, has been receiving pretty harsh reviews, his attempt at venturing, yet again into the computer game world has been scrapped by Konami and now he has released, Crimson Peak.

Touted as a gothic horror, Crimson Peak finds a young novelist, Edith, who falls madly in love with a failed English businessman. After a brutal family tragedy, Edith and her partner move to England in hope for a fresh start, but an ominous house, conspiracy and a sibling rivalry seem to get in the way of happiness.

There is a slight air of excitement as we venture into Crimson Peak, Del Toro has always proved wonderful and bringing story driven fantasy to life, his eye for visual flair, vulgar monsters and a strong passion for the romantic, can be found littered throughout all his best feature lengths, lets just forget about Pacific Rim.

However it becomes abundantly clear, very quickly, that Crimson Peak is not only a full on romantic outing, it also packs little to no scares what so ever, fair enough had this movie actually not tried at every turn to be the next commercial horror outing.

Visually Crimson Peak is utterly jaw dropping, Del Toro's colour palette can be distinguished instantly with warm glowing orange, contrast with reds, greens and blues, his visual flair feeling like a graphic novel brought to life, and its a breath of fresh air to finally find ourselves back in a set or location, rather than have a plethora of green screen abuse at every turn.

But Del Toro drops the ball when it comes to showing any form of threat that isnt human, gone are the gorgeous model or costume work from his arsenal, instead we are left with blatantly obvious CGI creations, that not only fail to scare but have very little to no purpose in the film what so ever.

That's because the true horror of Crimson Peak doesnt want to rear its ugly head until the final act, leaving us with a rather ho hum love triangle, set in front of gorgeous scenery. The actors all do a great job, Tom Hiddleston is great, Mia Wasikowska is proficient at leading lady material and Jessica Chastain does a good job of not annoying me, which is good because she appears to be in every film as of late.

Del Toro's script just has nothing to exciting for them to do, nothing to really build a full character on, instead its just Mia the good girl who's timid, Tom the suave man with a secret and Jessica the jealous one, and yes they give it their all, but with the film not requiring anything more than a down to earth performance, there is nowhere left for them to go.

Crimson Peak also decides to linger far too long, loosing steam very quickly and never really regaining it until the final act, and at 2 hours long, that's a huge flat line of a gap. Del Toro does show moments of creative genius, the film looks crisp and atmospheric, when he uses them practical effects are spot on and effective, his design is clearly still as brutal as ever and his eye for distinct visuals hasn't wavered.

There is just too much misdirection and not enough meat on Crimson Peak's bones to suffice either genre it craves so desperately to be, its not a complete waste of time and there are flashes of a great film in here, you just have to look really hard and that shouldn't be the case.