Crimson Peak is perhaps my favorite Guillermo del Toro movie. Gothic to the hilt, the story—a bit overwrought—features plenty of ghosts and a house appropriate to them. The many reflexes of horror on display here make it a compelling movie, despite its box office disappointment (although, honestly, how can $19 million really be a disappointment?). There’s a gothic mansion, a murderous plot, blood-red clay, incestuous siblings, ghosts—what more’s necessary? Thomas Sharpe is a minor aristocrat down on his luck. All he and his sister have is the crumbling Allerdale Hall, perched atop Crimson Peak with its clay mines beneath. In need of investors, they travel to Buffalo, New York, where Edith Cushing (surely no coincidence of names) meets and falls in love with Thomas. Her wealthy father dies in mysterious circumstances, but she marries Thomas and they head for England along with her inheritance.
It’s clear something’s not right, so Edith, who is an aspiring writer, explores the old house and makes some unwelcome discoveries. And she sees ghosts. They help her unravel what’s going on but her health is declining as winter sets in. Of course, the fact that she’s being poisoned doesn’t hurt. Thomas and Lucille, the lover siblings, have done this before. More than once. There’s a kind of Bluebeard theme running through Crimson Peak. Each time they inherit the wealth of the deceased brides but they can’t get the mines up and running to save their estate. The twist is that this time Thomas has actually fallen in love, making it difficult for him to kill Edith. Their house, except for that gaping hole in the roof, is one of my favorites from any movie.
The more I think about it, the haunted house in gothic films may be the decisive element for me. I’ve always loved Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and perhaps growing up in humble domiciles attuned me to what could be. I loved reading about Collinwood. Maybe I even knew that such houses come with a very steep price that consequently casts them as haunted. Indeed, in the movie itself Edith says the ghosts in her story are metaphors for the past. Of course, she encounters literal ghosts at Crimson Peak. This is a movie about moods and gothic settings. The horror pretty much matches what del Toro offers up in other films like The Devil’s Backbone. The only monsters here are the ghosts and they aren’t the bad guys.
