When your new English beau brings you back to his estate and there’s a crater-sized hole in the roof, you might reconsider the plan. Part of the joy of the changing of seasons is experiencing them, then going away. You don’t actually need to see the new fall colors as they present themselves in your living room.
You can’t deny the style of Crimson Peak. You can probably deny everything else, but the movie has style. Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) demonstrates the proper English waltz with selected partner Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) by holding a lit candle, explaining that the motion of the dance should be so smooth it doesn’t extinguish the flame. If Crimson Peak had managed more scenes like this and fewer trying to figure out if it were a mystery, horror or general home repair show, it would have been a much better film.
Actually, I could have gone for some good old fashioned repair. Allerdale Mansion was equally as warm as Tommy’s sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain, well cast as an ice queen here). Ok, so why is the Sharpe mansion so … flat … and why have Thomas, Lucille and Edith come back for winter? Do you really dig combination nightclothes/ball gowns? I kinda don’t; I’m thinking that when it comes to nightwear, less is more, but hey, you’re newlyweds, why would that be a concern?
I suppose I better step back a bit – it’s the early 20th Century, and down-on-their-luck English landowners Thomas and Lucille have become professional sponges. Being an Englishman by trade, Thomas has also attracted himself to Edith, the daughter of a wealthy American self-made millionaire. Edith’s dead ghoulish mother shows up every once in a while to warn of “Crimson Peak,” whatever that is. Mom, you want to be a little more specific? And, I dunno, anything else you want to tell me while you’re a hauntin’? I dunno — secret to eternal life? Source of buried treasure? You love me? Anything will do, really. “Crimson Peak,” huh? Well, ok, thanks, mom. Good luck with all the undead and stuff.
Edith’s dad (Jim Beaver) pays off Thomas to be a dick to his daughter (theoretically ending her infatuation), which he pulls off magnificently only to retract the very next day when lo-and-behold! Dad has been murdered! [flat voice]gosh, I wonder who could have done it?[/flat voice] And the next scene, everybody is moving into Allerdale Hall where Thomas is bankrupt because he hasn’t yet perfected mud farming. Seriously, 
he’s trying to invent some sort of early 20th Century backhoe machine. I’m disturbed by a guy who sees a hole or five in the house where he lives and concludes, “we need more holes in this place.”
When it comes down to it, disturbing is what Crimson Peak does best. Cold, dark and moody 24/7, with the occasional specter thrown in. Sure, add some more fog, why not? What is with Lucille and that damn piano? Does Crimson Peak refer to that awful blood-red gown she sports? And why do the undead keep coming out of the floorboards? Well, you know what they say – you don’t marry a person, you marry a family … and their undead – say, I have an idea: why doesn’t your ghoul meet their ghoul and fight-it-out or something? Would you believe this film is not actually about the undead? There goes a waste of time, a striking waste of time, but a waste of time nonetheless; Tom, Jessica, Mia, Guillermo del Toro — you’ve all done better than this.
Goodness, why did you attack?
All manners you did lack.
Someone killed daddy!
OK, we’ll move to your shack
Rated R, 119 Minutes
D: Guillermo del Toro
W: Guillermo del Toro, Matthew Robbins
Genre: Mock-horror
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Guillermo del homies
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Horror purists
