Redheadedgirl and Amanda saw Crimson Peak, as did I (but on the other side of the country). For RHG and I, Crimson Peak is pure crack. It has gothic romance. It has stunning costumes. It has my imaginary movie star boyfriend, Tom Hiddelston, making puppy eyes at everything that moves, and Jessica Chastain looking daggers at everyone and it’s basically everything we love in life.
It’s hard to describe the plot without getting into spoilers, so here’s a super short synopsis from Fandango:
In this gothic romance set at the turn of the 20th century, a mysterious stranger named Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) woos young author Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) and brings her as his bride to his mansion atop a clay mountain in Cumbria, England. There, Edith meets Sharpe’s strange and secretive sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain), and learns that her new home holds many disturbing secrets that will force her to fight for her sanity and her very life. Directed by Guillermo Del Toro. – Erin Demers, Rovi
Here is our non-spoilery review: “That was just about the most gothic thing ever, which of course means we loved it.”
Everything else on here is a spoiler. BEWARE.
SPOILER ALL THE SPOILERS. THIS MOVIE HAS VARIOUS TWISTS AND WE REVEAL ALL. ENTER AT OWN RISK.
SERIOUSLY. We can’t talk about it without giving away the particulars.
NOT KIDDING HERE.
OK, here we go!
RHG: That was very, very red. I have some questions.
First: Edith as a small child – why did you not cower under a blanket? It is known that blankets keep you safe from ghosts. IT IS KNOWN.
Second, Edith as an adult: YOU’VE BEEN LIVING WITH GHOSTS FOR A LONG TIME. SHUT THE FUCKING DOORS. That doesn’t keep them out, obviously, but at least you don’t have to look at them. Also a loud firm “KNOCK IT OFF” at ghosts will make them stop their histrionics. Not that I’ve done that. Why are you looking at me like that?
CarrieS: I noticed that if you look at other reviews of this movie, they are very love it or hate it, which I think it totally legit. Did it make any sense? No, none at all. Was it very well written? Some of it was, though the first third in particular was super clunky. Yet I adored it.
I compare this movie to Pacific Rim and contrast it to Pan’s Labyrinth (both of which, like Crimson Peak, are Guillermo Del Toro products). Pan’s Labyrinth appealed to a broad audience – it had all these fantasy elements, but also these gritty realistic elements, so a lot of people liked it even if they weren’t into fantasy. Pacific Rim rested it’s attraction on one thing – it was a movie in which giant mecha fight kaiju. Del Toro took his passion for that idea and cranked it up to 11, so if you liked the idea of seeing mecha fight alien monsters, then Pacific Rim was the BEST THING EVER and if you weren’t into Mecha vs Godzilla, well then fine, that just leaves more popcorn for me.
Crimson Peak is the Gothic Pacific Rim. It’s all the trappings of Victorian Gothic cranked up as far as it can go. So I’d tell people that either they love Gothic Victorian or they don’t, and therein the success of failure of the movie rests for them as a viewer.
RHG: I never look at other reviews until I’ve written my own.
It totally made sense. The Sharpes needed money, and the only thing they had to sell was…well, Tom’s dick. Well, his hand really, because his dick wasn’t supposed to come into it (man, this sentence just gets filthier and filthier the further I delve into it, so… ah, fuck it), but implied dick that is attached to a guy who looks like Tom Hiddleston is part of the package, so the previous wives take it. His hand, I mean. So they sell hands and implied dick and move on to the next. It makes as much sense as Jane fucking Eyre.
Maybe that proves your point. IT MADE MORE SENSE THAN WUTHERING HEIGHTS.
We go to Del Toro movies for the visuals and love of the genre he’s working in. He never makes the same movie twice, and when he goes in, he goes ALL IN. It’s why we love him. If you’re not already interested in the genre, you’re probably not going to be all in on the movie. He doesn’t fuck around.
CarrieS: I have things to say about the end. Also, another day we must throw down regarding Jane Eyre. Another day.
But speaking of Jane Eyre, did you notice that Thomas Sharpe’s declaration of love to Edith is almost an exact quote from Jane Eyre? That rascal.
Before we discuss the end, you are not the only one with questions. I realize ghosts are usually constrained in what they can say and how much time they have to say it in, but if I were going to haunt my daughter with a warning I’d squeeze in, “It’s me, your mom, don’t freak out and don’t marry Thomas Sharpe!” “For that matter, “Thomas Sharpe” has the same number of syllables as “Crimson Peak” so she could have said “Beware Thomas Sharpe” which would have saved much more trouble than “Beware Crimson Peak.” Why are the ghosts so fucking unhelpful, even when they can talk?
RHG: Yeah, Mom’s message was unnecessarily vague. Like, be more specific and that might have been ACTUALLY USEFUL.
CarrieS: OK, the end – I loved that they played with the gothic damsel in distress thing right up until near the end and then Edith was like, “Well, fuck it, I’m just going to have to save myself and also I guess I have to save this dude who came to save me but now is bleeding all over the place.” It was deeply satisfying to have tiny Edith who spent most of the movie weeping suddenly start dragging Alan around and stashing him in gross places and being all, “You stay here and try not to bleed out while I go hit this pyscho chick with a shovel, ‘K? I have things to do.” LOVED THAT. You go, Edith.
Also re: end BIG TRIGGER WARNING:
RHG: Having the big beat down between Mia and Jessica in their flowing white nightgowns was gorgeous and lovely. And even while Edith was weeping, she was still being an active heroine looking for information and digging for clues and figuring shit out (WITH CREEPY WAXY FACES IN THE CLOSET AUGH WTF) (She had glasses, just in case we missed it. They were cute glasses, but come on, we get it).
I really hope we start seeing Crimson Peak ghost cosplay. I want to know what people are going to do with that.
CarrieS: OMG it would be so amazing to see someone pull off the hallway ghost (it’s missing a lot of its lower body, but someone will come up with something that can work) pulling itself along the hallway floor at San Diego Comic-Con, shrieking at everyone in line for Ballroom 20. YES, PLEASE.
I agree about Edith. She always had agency, and she had room to grow as a character. I also liked it that she wasn’t shamed for having sexual desire. I wasn’t crazy about Mia Wasikowska’s acting early on but I thought it got stronger as the movie progressed. She played Jane Eyre in an awful adaptation of Jane Eyre, and she can carry a lot in a gothic movie just because she looks so perfect for it – she’s got those delicate bones and long neck and clear eyes that convey a certain essential “I am a good person” quality.
I thought Tom Hiddleston did great with his puppy eyes thing, and my love and respect and mad uncontrollable lust for Tom continue unabated, but obviously the really heavy hitter here was Jessica Chastain, or as she should ever be known, “Our Almighty Queen Jessica.”
RHG: I have seen the first half of that Jane Eyre twice and fell asleep at the same point both times. (It doesn’t help that I don’t like Fassbender.) (Someday, like at RT, we should play “give Carrie a wine cooler with 1% alcohol and then ask her about that godawful adaptation of Jane Eyre. I bet we could make BANK if we sold tickets.)
(CarrieS: Oh, honey, like we need the wine cooler. I have FEELINGS ABOUT THIS.)
Chastain is the heir apparent to Meryl Streep. Calling it now. Her resting bitch face is GLORIOUS. Tom is Tom and can say more with a jaw clench than certain other people can say with a Scorsese monologue (Yes, that was a Leo slam. HEYOOOOOOOO).
Can we talk about the set decoration and how like, “of course the Victorians came up with Gothic lit, THEY HAD TO SLEEP IN THOSE BIG DARK OVER FURNISHED HOUSES AND NEVER HAD ORGASMS.”
CarrieS: Oh, I’m pretty sure the characters in this movie had some pretty serious orgasms. Also, thanks, Del Toro, for gifting the female gaze with Tom Hiddleston’s perfect butt (fans self).
Regarding the set design – yes, and also the costumes GOOD LORD. When Thomas and Lucille are in the US and he’s all in black and she’s got this Victorian Vampirella thing on I seriously expected them to just randomly start sucking the blood of their fellow partiers right there at the dinner table. They wouldn’t try to hide it, but they would try not to soil their clothes. Standards.
The look of the movie was AMAZING.
RHG: The costumes are whole separate thing. There’s a delightful interview with Kate Hawley on Jezebel about the costumes and how she used the different silhouettes for Edith and Lucille (Lucille was, like her brother, about a decade or so out of date – the narrow bustle thing? That’s super 1890, while Edith was in the first stage of 1901 fashion….for the US). And I’m certain that Edith’s clothes were mostly inspired by items from The House of Worth . Her dressing gown when she comes down in one of the first mornings at Allendale Hall, with the brocade leaves and everything? VERY Worth-y.
Here are some links:
A dress from House of Worth, Metropolitan Museum
A day dress by designer Jacques Doucet
Dress by Charles Fredrick Worth
House of Worth, from the Metropolitan Museum
And Tom can wear himself a cravat. UNF. (Although when we see Charlie Hunnam in his evening clothes, I did mutter an audible “Well played, Charlie.”)
CarrieS: Slight tangent – I loved how Edith’s book kept coming in and out of the story – it’s how Thomas woos her, it’s how he breaks her heart, and it represents one of Lucille’s first open, visible acts of violence. It also tells us right away that this will be a movie primarily about women (it name drops Austen and Shelley in the first five minutes) and Edith’s crack about wanting to end up like Mary Shelley (“She died a widow”) not only foreshadows the plot but tells us that Edith is a little tougher and meaner than she usually appears to be.
RHG: OH, yeah! When he goes in on her writing as the method of dumping her, that was the right thing to do to totally break her heart- that’s what she cares about most. A most palpable hit, sir.
CarrieS: I was afraid I’d be too scared to watch this movie, but most of the jump scares were in the trailer. I found it suspenseful, and exciting, and I totally closed my eyes a bunch of times, but I didn’t actually have to hide under the seat, and I’m a softy.
I thought overall the movie, in addition to being so gorgeous to look at, was not so much scary as it was a combination of empowering and tragic. It’s really a tribute to Jessica and Tom that I could both loathe the actions of their characters and want them to pay, and still feel compassion for their terrible lives. And if there’s anything more thrilling than the actresses Mia and Jessica chasing each other through a haunted house in bloody white nighties while screaming, well, I just don’t know what it is.
I loved both the male actors, but I loved it even more that it came down to two women, who are both fighting for agency in the only ways they know how to do so (in Lucille’s case it involves serial killing, so that’s maybe not the best life choice, but her actions are motivated by trying to find a way to have the life she wants – trying to have agency). Jessica spit out some line readings that…well…like I said, she’s our Almighty Queen. Amazing.
RHG: Amanda cracked that this house would make a HELL of an episode of Love It or List It. She is not wrong (but can you imagine the conniption Hillary would have over the foundation work that house needs? Like, WHO THE FUCK BUILDS A HUGE HEAVY HOUSE OVER A MINE WHERE WHAT YOU’RE DIGGING UP IS SQUISHY? WHAT FUCKING ARCHITECT DID THAT?)
Edith, as the daughter of a builder should have said “Wait, this house is built over the mine and it’s SINKING? We’re moving. Now. Today. Yesterday. What the actual fuck, Thomas. You don’t even have a tarp to go over the roof, Thomas.”
Deep breath
CarrieS: I know you’re gonna roll your eyes and say, “Whatever, Carrie, it’s pretty” but I did not for one single second believe that Lucille and Thomas lived in the house. I don’t even think they could – I think they’d freeze to death. They would have sold all the art and furniture and silver and jewelry and gone to live someplace else under assumed names. The thing where they can’t leave the house was, I’m sorry, stupid. When I said earlier that the movie didn’t make sense, I didn’t mean the marriage plot – that made perfect sense. I meant all this drama so they could stay in the house, which would clearly kill any inhabitant within a week. And yet I did not care, because it was also soooo pretty.
RHG: I am honestly surprised that the house hadn’t killed them. Not like, because the house was evil or angry, but just…. falling through the floor and shit. Oooooooh, a fixer upper the Property Brothers would love!
What grade would you give this?
CarrieS: I’d give it an A with a “mileage will vary” caveat. If you like Gothic, if any of the pics in this review make you go, “Ooooohhhhh,” then you will love the shit out of this movie, and you should see it on the big screen because SO PRETTY. If the pics and the gothic thing make you say, “Eh, I dunno,” then you’ll find this more of a B or B- experience.
Amanda, who is less of a gothic and/or Victorian fanatic than RHG and I, found it to be around a B- experience with “Jessica Chastain’s side eye and resting bitch face” being the best part of the movie.
RHG: Yeah, I’m with Carrie. That’s about right.
CarrieS: Also your experience will vary based on expectations. This is gothic romantic ghost story, not hardcore horror with some romance. It has scares, and it has gore, but it relies more on an atmosphere of dread and a mystery to be solved and tortured psychology than it relies on the ghosts or the jumps. For me that’s a huge, huge plus, but anyone looking for hard core horror might be disappointed.
Vox.com has a great article on the difference between a ghost story and a horror movie and how that applies to Crimson Peak.
RHG: Del Toro said, “This isn’t horror,” and he’s mostly right (I did watch certain scenes between my fingers and kind of wishing I had my ghost-proof blankie, but I’m a wimp). It is totally a gothic romance where the heroine runs around in a fluffy white nightgown with ridiculous sleeves and flowing hair and a candelabra. If you see that image and you’re like “oh, TELL ME MORE” than this is your movie.
Crimson Peak is in theatres now, and you can find tickets (US) at Fandango and Moviefone.