Black and White and Red All Over

Movies: Crimson Peak

Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak isn't so much "good" as it is entertaining. The film has an enormous gothic sensibility, with a crumbling old mansion at its center; and like many gothic novels and films, the melodrama is rampant and, at times, hilarious.

Mia Wasikowska plays Edith Cushing, an aspiring writer who falls for delicate, pale Baronet Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston). Thomas and his sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain) are titled but poor, forced to travel the world all but begging for funds to help get Thomas' invention--a machine that pulls red clay from the ground so that it can be made into bricks--afloat. Despite the Sharpe's destitution and her father's distrust of the siblings, Edith falls for Thomas and the two get married and travel to England to Allerdale Hall, the Sharpe's family mansion which is in complete ruin. It's also filled with unsavory spirits.

To say that Crimson Peak is over the top is putting it lightly. The film has more plot holes than a moth-eaten negligee and enough half-baked metaphors to fill a 7th grade English class. Allerdale Hall is built on a red clay mine. Since the house is so old, it's slowly sinking into the ground, which means that the clay oozes through the floorboards looking, of course, like thick, red blood. Edith is a sensitive woman who has seen ghosts her whole life--so naturally she can't get a decent night's sleep in a place like Allerdale Hall--a veritable boarding house for ghosts (interestingly, the ghosts are all portrayed as having Nosferatu-like fingers and big, ol' titties [they're all lady ghosts, you see]). But despite seeing ghosts literally every second, Edith never thinks to actually leave Allerdale Hall--nor does she seem all that frightened to begin with.

The secrets of the house--and of the Sharpe siblings--is revealed slowly over the course of the film. When the big "twist" is revealed, it's not all that shocking. More of a confirmation of what the viewer was already expecting.

But despite the ridiculousness of the whole premise, Crimson Peak is good, mildly spooky fun (it's a good scary movie for people who can barely tolerate scary movies). And it is absolutely gorgeous. The fact that red, blood-like clay leaks through every crevice of the mansion is certainly a ham-fisted metaphor for violence and decay, but damn if it doesn't look beautiful and haunting on the big screen. And the ridiculous, high-necked gowns that Chastain and Wasikowska wear should have their own museum exhibit.

So: mediocre film, good fun, and Tom Hiddleston's ass. It's not the worst night you could have at the movies.

Grade: B-