I have a LOT to say about Guillermo del Toro’s latest.
My four-star review of Crimson Peak is now up at Rogerebert.com.
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God, this sounds AMAZINGGGGGGGG!!!!
Ohhhh, it’s luscious and Gothic and tormented and amazing.
See it so we can discuss!!
ASAP!
Also it’s a Clash of the Titans between two women. Suuuuper fun to see these female “archetypes” examined, up-ended, and embraced. I don’t know – there’s something very profound there, even beyond the story. It’s a woman’s story – the way Sleeping Beauty or Snow White actually comment on the situation for women, of being dominated, silenced, the fear of womanhood unleashed, etc. Those fairy tales contain so much anxiety – which is why they’re so great and so relevant still.
Del Toro is somehow working in that realm, in my estimation – in all of his films.
Powerful archetype stuff.
Aaagh, now you are just torturing me
hahahaha I thought so.
I’ve seen some other critics talk about how it’s “obvious” (the monologues at the end) or “not scary” – etc. But Gothic stuff is not always a “Gotcha” type of scare but more of a creeping freezing psychosexual dread.
And in that environment, a damsel in distress has to turn into a brave heroine. Or at least that’s what happens in Del Toro’s version. This is the archetype thing. How she has to switch. Similar to Pan’s Labyrinth with the little girl – a pawn, helpless, dominated … who then is the one who has to go on the quest and be brave – and I suppose, too, similar to Rinko Kikuchi in Pacific Rim – who is good and competent at fighting – but still needs to … submit to being an action heroine, basically. The struggle of women to shed one role and inhabit another. Del Toro is so sensitive to that stuff.
But he has definitely watched Rebecca and Notorious probably 100 times in succession, I imagine.
I am so excited for this movie–I have been since I first read about it (on Jim Beaver’s Facebook, of all places). I’m glad to hear that you liked it so much–I’ve missed the past couple of Del Toro films, but Pan’s Labyrinth left its mark on me, and left me actually ugly-crying in the theater.
Thanks so much for linking your review, Sheila–maybe I’ll actually get to see this in a theater this weekend!
Jim Beaver is excellent in it, with a full Victorian-era beard. He has some GREAT scenes.
I love Del Toro’s films – Pacific Rim, even with aliens and giant robots, etc., hit some very tender emotional points that really really got to me. But yes, Pan’s Labyrinth was absolutely devastating.
Crimson Peak is some serious Gothic shit – WITHOUT the feeling that it’s trying to be “campy,” or snark-snark comment on the style.
I loved it.
Of course, I first saw Jim Beaver as Bobby on SPN, but since then I’ve started looking for his work. Deadwood is still only on my list, but he was also great on Justified as the sheriff-with-a-secret. The relationship that develops between him and the young girl on that show was really kinda beautiful–and at one point, trying to make a decision, he says, “Balls–” We thought maybe Sheriff Shelby has a cousin in South Dakota!
Crimson Peak looks like some serious Edgar Allen Poe gothic to me–I can’t wait to see it!
// We thought maybe Sheriff Shelby has a cousin in South Dakota! //
Ha!!
Oh god Sheila- I’ve been so excited for this film ever since watching Pan’s Labyrinth. It sounds amazing! I liked Mia Wakisowska in Alice In Wonderland. And Jim Beaver? Ohmygod.
Mia is great – Tom Hiddleston is awesome – the SETS are just amazing – and these are SETS, not CGI backgrounds. They are so impressive.
And Jim Beaver’s wonderful performance dominates the first section of the movie and he has a couple of terrific scenes – with all three leads in different environments. He’s a cunning man, with sharp insightful eyes, an explosive temper, but also tremendously gentle and protective with his daughter. It’s beautiful work. Not a surprise, but still.
Very excited to hear everyone else’s responses!
And it’s not every current-day movie where you get to talk about iris wipes.
Or F.W. Murnau and Shirley Jackson.
I was bummed by the review in Variety, this makes me so much happier!
I haven’t read any other reviews since I go into a media blackout – as much as possible – when I’m reviewing something. Same reason I stay away from even SPN commercials or pre-season chatter. It’s superstitious I guess but I really have to try to block it out to keep my own responses fresh.
But yeah: I think it’s great! It’s not a “horror film” – the trailers are misleading – it’s a creepy-crawly-dread kind of thing, almost 100% psychological, although yes, there are these awful apparitions floating around willy-nilly as well.
This looks so good – I can’t wait! Love the comparison to Notorious in your review. One of my favorite movies with all those scenes in light and shadow, such delicious anxiety. I don’t like horror movies – so many have crossed the line into gore porn. Give me creepy and anxious where I’m balled up on the couch with my pillow.
//Clash of the Titans between two women// That makes this even better. These two actresses amaze me because they have such soft feminine features and yet can be so tough. All that and Jim Beaver as a father? It’s too much.
Yeah, it’s really really rich!!
There’s this whole business with the key chain in Notorious – do you remember? – when she slips the key off, hides it, and then returns it … and it’s discovered … exact same sequence in Crimson Peak – I got so excited! and then the tea cups, too – but I didn’t want to give too much away.
Let me know what you think once you’ve seen it!
Yes, the keychain! That whole sequence was so stressful. And the stairs in the Sebastians’ house were so foreboding with Mrs Sebastian at the top with her face in shadows. Modern setting (at the time) yet so gothic.
Now I’m all fired up.
Right – and rescuing the “damsel in distress” – who is ALSO a brave brave heroine … she’s allowed to be both.
these are powerful story elements.
Dammit, I’m dying for you all to see it so we can discuss!!
Saw it tonight and it’s one of my new favorite films of the year. I know I have to see it again, because Del Toro is so rich in the details. The details will tell you more about the story, the movie Del Toro is really making than the dialogue honestly. I really loved the central trio. And Jessica Chastain continues to impress me, so noble in Interstellar, so twisted and sinister here.
And I really loved how Mia Wasikowska was brave and bright and figured things out, while also remaining a woman of her time. Helpless Gothic heroines make me grind my teeth, but I’m also taken out of the story by ridiculously anachronistic “let me make a rudimentary lathe out of my corset and kick box my way to freedom” type heroines. The latter prove the director has no faith in the period, and has to make apologies for “that’s just how it was” when in actuality women were capable of finding ways to claim some agency of their own.
Spoilers follow from here. And yet the stifling social mores and expectations are part of the film’s dread. You recognize her father as a genuine champion for his daughter and when he is gone you truly are terrified for her.
And the final moment with Thomas’ ghost is incredibly moving. It’s why Del Toro is one of my favorite directors. It’s so sad and horrible and yet strangely touching and beautiful. Love both destroyed and saved him.
So much is lost when modern attitudes are super-imposed on period films. It drives me crazy! Especially because so many absolutely unforgettable female characters come from before any kind of women’s movement – their power acknowledged, their experience prioritized and expressed – George Eliot, the Brontes, Jane Austen, all the rest. To assume that 20th century women invented awesome strong females … History can be fun, people! Try it!
But I agree with you that Mia was so interesting – because the “damsel in distress” had to change her tune and become an active heroine. She HAD to. So she switched. Nobody else would do it for her. And I love that the doctor arrived and she STILL had to save herself. What a welcome change, right??
It would have been very disappointing if after all that, after all her smarts and courage, she STILL had to be rescued by a man. In the end, the two of them rescued each other.
// when he is gone you truly are terrified for her. //
Absolutely.
Here’s another thing I loved, Jessica – which I didn’t mention in my review because I was so concerned about spoilers. I didn’t want to mention the plot, really, at all. Would love to hear your thoughts: Instead of trying to “dupe” the audience, Del Toro put the cards on the table in that first section.
1. Mother-ghost warns daughter of “Crimson Peak.” It’s right up there at the front.
2. Instead of fooling the audience that Thomas Sharpe is some sensitive Byronic hero, Del Toro immediately places him under suspicion – not just because his sister seems legitimately insane – but in that first great scene with Jim Beaver, he CLOCKS Sharpe on his sketchy beggar-ness, and Del Toro lets us see that that is spot-on. In other words: imagine if the film had painted Jim Beaver as a negative guy, or “against” his daughter being happy/sexual – whatever. Sure, that’s a way to go. But the suspicion was just unbearable because the dad KNEW what Edith could not/would not see – that this Thomas guy was bad bad news. And he would have told her all about it had he not died. Also, we get the confrontation scene between the dad and the brother and sister – where he completely rips away the facade, tells them he knows, and tells them to stay away from his daughter.
It’s pretty bold to put these warnings out there at the get-go. One would think it would lessen suspense. (It doesn’t.) One would think too that it would make Edith look a little bit dumb, like she’s not picking up on red flags. But Del Toro is so elegant with it: Thomas shows Edith the kind of consideration/warmth that melts her (that waltz scene!!!) – AND he colludes with his sister in sinister whispers – all in front of our eyes.
I loved that there was no bones about it: Thomas and Sarah were bad news. Edith only saw the good side because that’s what was shown to her. Who of us haven’t been duped by a charming sociopath? (Well, I’ll just speak for myself. I have.)
So I just loved how even though these warning signals were set up in the first 15 minutes of the movie – we still feel the suspense and dread – because EDITH doesn’t connect the dots – she doesn’t look at the red snow and think, “Oh, the nickname for this house must be Crimson Peak, and Dead Mummy warned me about that – OMG No.”
She just didn’t put it together. The moment when she realized that the house was called Crimson Peak …
goosebumps.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Jessica – I was hoping to hear your reaction.
“She just didn’t put it together. The moment when she realized that the house was called Crimson Peak …”
Yes! That was one of my favorite acting moments in the film. Just the look of total horror in her eyes that she was trying to tamp down because as much as you can tell she wanted to cry out she has to remain calm, she has to play it off as just an observation. All “Oh really? how interesting…” when you can see the abyss opening up around her.
And I agree it was smart to put the cards on the table early about Thomas and Lucille. This is a Gothic story, it would actually sap suspense to pretend that Thomas is who is appears to be and we’d be tediously waiting for the other shoe to drop all through the first half of the film. This way the dread starts building and seeping through all these beautiful, almost Sargent painting like American scenes. The chill of autumn and winter arriving.
And yet Edith doesn’t come off as an idiot for not picking up on the signs. Because we see things Edith doesn’t. Edith is falling in love, quite against her expectations that she would ever do so, of course love papers over that little voice that tells us to be careful.
And importantly, revealing Thomas as a villain makes his journey that much more interesting as we see that he is genuinely falling in love with her. If anything, that is the most Gothic touch of all, that our dread increases when we see that he does genuinely care for her, because that will make what happens to all of them that much more horrible.
// All “Oh really? how interesting…” when you can see the abyss opening up around her. //
Yes! But that BOLT of fear …
and she felt that fear from the get-go, the second she walked in that house – but she mis-diagnosed it, or thought she was over-reacting. I loved how relaxed she felt in the inn – how they could finally consummate the marriage there – and how cozy that room was. Wonderful contrast. AND that Lucille KNEW what it meant.
// we’d be tediously waiting for the other shoe to drop all through the first half of the film. //
Yes – we’ve seen all that before!!
I agree: the element of Thomas unexpectedly falling in love for real was beautifully complex and makes me want to see it again – now that I know his secret. (Although, honestly, I guessed. Pretty early on. I think it was the Angels and Insects connection I made – that I mentioned lower in the thread.)
But still: him resisting her, and then falling – for real – and not knowing what to do about it – and trying to save her … it was very moving – really chaotic. That whole last sequence was total chaos – and yet like I said in my review – I loved how we had gotten to know that huge house so well that I never lost track of where I was – I know the floors, where the elevator would stop, etc. REALLY well conceived.
“I loved how relaxed she felt in the inn – how they could finally consummate the marriage there – and how cozy that room was. Wonderful contrast. AND that Lucille KNEW what it meant.”
That was one of the most interesting touches and twists Del Toro made. That their sexual encounter was a healthy, and even a healing, one. And again it’s something good that insures everything will fall apart. She has a non traumatic loss of her virginity, he gets to sleep with someone he’s not related to and he gets a glimpse of another life that could’ve been his. And Lucille’s volcanic explosion of rage in the kitchen afterwards was one of my favorite moments from Chastain. Because you can tell Lucille knows she’s lost her grip on her brother.
It ties into what I like about this film. That for all the supernatural elements the events propelling the horror are very prosaic. Knowing Del Toro and from the trailers I had a prediction that Thomas’ secret would be these kinds of mad science Doctor Frankenstein like experiments. But no, all this horror, all this suffering because he’s a aristocrat trying to get the family’s coffers full again.
It leaves more space for the emotions and relationships to take the full focus of the film. And it makes the ghosts more frighting to know they’re not after Edith, they’re trying to warn her to prevent her from sharing their fate. And it makes it more powerful that there isn’t some curse on Allerdale. No vampire in the family crypt. No reincarnated love come back. Just people, people capable of doing monstrous things and creating supernatural horror in the wake of their very human actions. There’s something so sad and so fitting that Lucille is doomed to sit at her piano for eternity. She lets the past destroy her.
“I loved how we had gotten to know that huge house so well that I never lost track of where I was – I know the floors, where the elevator would stop, etc. REALLY well conceived.”
This is something so often overlooked in Old Dark House type films. Unlike say The Shining, where the fact that The Overlook’s layout doesn’t make sense is part of the film’s chills, that reality falls apart in that evil place. In most haunted house films it comes off as sloppiness. That they’re so eager to get to the next set piece they don’t bother with does the layout make sense. And it takes you out of the film because you’re just on a haunted house ride now. Also, Allerdale Hall is stylized to an inch of its life, its Del Toro after all, but still looks like people could live there. Again, physical sets and props are your friend as a filmmaker.
Jessica – yes, loved the sex scene, it was passionate and fun – basically: get on top, wife, and enjoy yourself – which was so touching but yes, felt so fragile. That could not have happened in that Giger-Leviathan house.
I haven’t read many other reviews but I’ve seen a lot of headlines like: “Crimson Peak is low on horror” or “It’s not really a horror movie …”
Oh, these people with their classifications and preconceived notions that actually make them unable to SEE.
If you read Frankenstein, you know that it is not just a “monster” story. Or … it is, but it’s filled with far more dread than what “monster story” conveys. It is a book about the terrifying nature of technology, and what that says about God – plus the absolutely unfeeling face of Mother Nature – who does not care, does not even notice, about the pains/struggles of humans. It’s about isolation. The horror does not come just from the monster – but from the reaction of the creator.
That’s what Gothic stories, the best of them, were all about.
I guess that’s one of the reasons why Shirley Jackson kept coming to mind (especially her novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle – have you read it, Jessica??? If you haven’t – RUN towards that book – I think you will LOVE it.)
The horror in Jackson’s stories came out of the everyday, and the domestic. Like the casual farmer-neighbor chit-chat leading up to the horrible ending of The Lottery. Or all her short stories, where a busy housewife starts to unravel. Domesticity was where the real horrors lay for her.
So all those domestic details – the scraping of the spoon against the saucer. I mean … That kitchen. Those knives. What the hell is Lucille even cooking? I couldn’t help but think that Lucille is probably a wretched cook. Because she doesn’t give a shit. Also, they don’t have enough money for anything fresh – who the hell knows WHAT they were eating. Oatmeal, right? Porridge. Goulash.
I’m thinking Del Toro has read his Shirley Jackson too – with his understanding of female hostility, and how it operates when it doesn’t have a valid (or political/social) outlet. You become vicious about tea cups and recipes, to simplify.
I agree with what you say about the horror in the film – for me, like I said in the review, it’s the emotions that are terrifying. More so than the ghosts – who were more grotesque than terrifying. There’s an episode of Supernatural where a derelict insane asylum is filled with the howls of agonized ghosts, people who had been locked up there and tortured in the past. The ghosts are very frightening and just APPEAR right in front of people – and of course everyone is very scared of them – but then they figure out that the ghosts don’t want to harm them – they want to tell their stories, they want to unleash the secrets of what happened to them there … don’t let our deaths here be in vein, be our witnesses, etc.
Kind of like the dead people in Edgar Lee Master’s Spoon River Anthology – who have these monologues from beyond the grave, crying out to the living to know their secrets, understand what happened to them, please don’t let my pain be forgotten!
That aspect of Edith’s eventual “relationship” with the ghosts was tremendously moving. I have goosebumps just writing about it. From the beginning, apparitions appear to her. And they are Nosferatu scary (I hate those long fingers!!) But they never attack her, right? Not once. I didn’t realize that until the end of the film when she realized she needed to look, and to listen, because the ghosts were not trying to scare her – it’s not their fault they lOOKED so scary – they were trying to communicate. So she can be their witness to what happened to them.
So so good – so effective. To those looking for “Gotcha” scares … It’s kind of like only eating crap food. You lose perspective that not all food is crap food. That other kinds of food are good as well – maybe better for you – maybe better prepared. It’s all about preconceived notions: It’s not Crimson Peak’s fault that it’s not a Gotcha-scare horror movie. It’s YOUR fault that you sat there blaming it for what it is not.
// Also, Allerdale Hall is stylized to an inch of its life, its Del Toro after all, but still looks like people could live there. //
Oh, absolutely. When edith says, “It’s colder inside than it is outside,” I FELT that cold. It was a palpable and real set. Citizen Kane-ending in its scope, its freezing spaces, its rooms so large they’re actually silly … the human beings rattling around in all that space.
And the sheer amount of detail in those props and wall hangings and everything else …
I’m with JessicaR, possibly my favorite film seen in a theater this year. I want to grab Wuthering Heights and Melmoth The Wanderer and just climb into something gothic. Mia was wonderful, completely impressive with 90% of the camera time. The film was so beautiful – the coverlet of teal and gold on Thomas’ and Edith’s bed could have come right out of Only Lovers Left Alive. The green walls. The gold dress that was perfect with Mia’s eyes. The endlessly falling leaves into the house (coming from what tree?). The Shining nod with the ball rolling back toward the bath. What felt like an Aliens nod, with Edith slashing at Lucille through the elevator, cutting a finger and the Giger-esque arches along the hallways. The Notorious nod with tea and the key. And like the Shining, with the chase in the snow. The dolls and toys, somewhat Hoffmann-esque. The wax recordings, reminiscent of Sudden Fear.
Jessica Chastain’s monologue near the end – that just took the movie into the stratosphere, “sweat and regret.” And Edith’s “characters can decide,” with Thomas deciding to be different from all the other times. I don’t think all of the blood at the end would have meant as much, been as shocking and terrible, if it hadn’t been for all of the setup before.
Mia’s scene in the morgue and her grief: just terrible and real and touching. I’ll probably add more later, but what a perfectly gothic experience this film was. The ants and butterflies and moths. The red clay everywhere. Lucille like a wraith in her billowing gown as she chased Edith with the smaller knife.
Giger!!! Excellent call – I wish I had thought of it – that is spot on! Those hallways looked like the black jaws of some Leviathan. (oops.)
And good call with Sudden Fear too – that’s one of my favorite scenes ever (the dictaphone scene).
The colors were amazing – the contrast between America and Allerdale Hall – I also loved how the puffed sleeves made the women look like linebackers. So small and fragile, their bodies, but the shadows they cast were formidable. I wonder if there’s something to it, in terms of the development of fashions before women had any political power. Hoop skirts, and tall huge hats, and puffed sleeves as large as a car. LOOK OUT HERE I COME.
Another interesting thing that comes out of my interest in Victorian culture – which I mentioned a little bit in my review but didn’t go into depth because of length:
Darwin had already made his earth-shattering discoveries which changed everything – moving the culture out of the amorphous Romantic period into something very new – where people became fascinated by science. Amateur horticulturists – and mainly amateur marine biologists – or geology. These Victorian gentlemen – like Tennyson et al – would take these long walking tours and collect samples. A main fascination was Lepidopterology – with these pinned butterflies and moths inside glass cases. It was also an era of gadgetry – development of the telephone, the gramophone, electric lights …
So in Crimson Peak we had both – which sort of counteracted the Gothic atmosphere and brought us into the characters’ present day which was Victorian. All of those moths. All of those gadgets. The optometrist’s office. The morgue. All the tools, the bolts and nuts … the presence of a scientific community with rigorous peer review (something Thomas Sharpe could not get a handle on – he was too lazy and sloppy) – the feeling that technology could somehow master nature. Get the clay out of the ground. Etc.
I just loved all of those subtle elements that immersed us in that world.
I am so glad you enjoyed it!!
A.S, Byatt’s Angels and Insects (as well as the film) is an exploration of that time: the fascination with bugs, mainly … ants mostly – but also butterflies – mixed with the unbelievable sexual passions raging in a repressed world. But the study of animals and insects brought the procreative urge to the forefront – in an era when no one wanted to talk about it – It’s like kids who grew up on farms, throughout the ages. They wouldn’t need to be given a birds-and-bees talk – they saw it in the yard.
Also, SPOILERS FOR CRIMSON PEAK:
Angels and Insects deals with incest. (Notice an anagram with the word “insect.”)
It’s a great novella – didn’t care for the film as much – but Byatt is obsessed with that pre-modern era (meaning Pre Modernist, Pre-Joyce, etc.): the dovetail of science and sexual physical passion, the accepted rules and then the constant understanding that beneath civilization animalistic urges are always at play.
I love the amateur scientist culture that Darwin was part of/exemplified. I’m not sure which was the chicken and which was the egg there. You had Jack Russell, “The Sporting Parson”, breeding the eponymous terrier, Berthon inventing his folding boat, Cartwright and his loom (a half century before these guys) – and those were just the clergy.
Byatt loves that sort of thing. Wasn’t the “gentleman” in The French Lieutenant’s Woman also an amateur … botanist, marine biologist? Speaking of that, I loved the inside the book/outside the book changes they made when that was turned into a movie.
I love that attitude, “If I look around, I might be able to see something new.” It really exemplifies Feynman’s definition of science: a belief in the ignorance of experts.
/an era of gadgetry/ Love me some steampunk. That goes right to the heart of Mr. Cushing’s gift of the pen to Edith: the right tool for the job!
/(something Thomas Sharpe could not get a handle on – he was too lazy and sloppy)/ True, but to cut the weak, manipulative accessory to murder some slack, he couldn’t exactly invite potential investors over to his crumbling home to show them his working model. Oh, I loved all those dredging contraptions so near the mansion. Some perverse mixture of practical and desperate – the ancestral home built on the source of wealth, which was slowly swallowing the home.
I’m sure this film will continue to call forth images and reflections. So rich in imagination.
/That goes right to the heart of Mr. Cushing’s gift of the pen to Edith: the right tool for the job!/ Though a typewriter would have been better. It’s hard for even an observant love to keep up with youthful ambition!
I like that Dr. McMichael the opthamologist, sees from afar what is going on. Junior detective/opthamologist like Arthur Conan Doyle, a nice touch. Zhivago was also an eye doctor, though I’m not getting a connection to the movie, just ruminating.
I agree with you and JessicaR, I liked that Edith had to ultimately rescue herself and McMichael.
Loved the Arthur Conan Doyle bit.
And i loved that guy so much in Pacific Rim – he’s just so OPEN – he was a wonderful romantic hero, very concerned, respectful of her, but clearly in love with her. And he staggered through a snowstorm to get to her! Only to be stabbed in the side and then told to WAIT by the vats of red ooze.
Awesome!
Yes – very steampunk! Another gadget/magic steampunk movie I loved was Hugo – I was in gadget heaven in that one.
// he couldn’t exactly invite potential investors over to his crumbling home to show them his working model. //
Yes, hahaha that’s true. And you could tell that Bobby Singer (oops) took one look at the guy and probably KNEW that he lived in some rotting mansion and was not the real deal.
// Oh, I loved all those dredging contraptions so near the mansion. Some perverse mixture of practical and desperate – the ancestral home built on the source of wealth, which was slowly swallowing the home. //
haha I know – with all that space around the house, that crane/drill had to be literally in the front yard. Big scary world beyond that fence. No telling what might happen if you put the crane … oh, 100 feet away.
/And you could tell that Bobby Singer (oops) took one look at the guy and probably KNEW that he lived in some rotting mansion and was not the real deal./
I could tell that Thomas had fallen in love with Edith for real when he commented about how his hands were getting rougher from working on the dredger and that Bobby… er, Carter, would have a different opinion of him if he could see him now. And to say that Thomas also had to ignore his knowledge of what had happened to Carter. Really nice gothic psychology there. Well written characters.
Good catch about the rough hands!
// Really nice gothic psychology there. //
I hadn’t thought of that – but yes, wonderful: everyone keeping all these secrets. Tremendously tense.
Sheila, I just returned from a screening of this. I may be in shock.
I know, right??
Okay, I can get my thoughts together a bit more now. I feel like I just drowned in Gothic gorgeousness. Loved Tom Hiddleston’s character- the way you see him turning around. And Chastain’s scene where she’s sobbing over his body- my god, what AMAZING work. Mia, too. The bit in the morgue. Jesus.
Also, iris wipes! IRIS WIPES, Sheila!!
And what beautiful dresses. Wowwwww.
I don’t think I even need to go into what I thought of Jim, other than that when he appeared I started quietly screaming and clutching my friend’s arm.
Wren – Yay!!
Yes: old-fashioned iris wipes. You just never see them anymore. I am pretty sure they used them in the SPN monster-movie episode. I love them so much!!
The dresses were incredible. And how about the hats on the snooty ladies in America who make fun of Edith’s writing? Those were masterpieces. It was like giant cockatoos had landed on those dames’ heads.
// I don’t think I even need to go into what I thought of Jim, other than that when he appeared I started quietly screaming and clutching my friend’s arm. //
Ha!! I think he would be so pleased to hear that. His beard!! I also LOVED the scene when he confronted Hiddleston and Chastain. What a GREAT scene. Chastain’s face when she realized he had busted them – when she realized how formidable he was.
In a way – Chastain – a gigantic movie actress – allowed Beaver to RUN that scene. Sometimes that doesn’t happen – sometimes a less COOL movie star will want to be the center of every scene, and directors sometimes feel mildly bullied to comply. But that scene was Jim’s – and both Chastain and Hiddleston just handed it right over to him. It worked. Beaver had all the power. It gave me chills.
It also really drove the point home – as Jessica mentioned above – that the dad’s death was the moment Edith’s fate became inevitable. Because he was so powerfully in her corner (not in a patriarchal way, but because he loved her and thought she was awesome) – once he was gone, she became Prey.
So glad you saw it and had such a reaction! I want to see it again – and on the big screen – it really is meant to be seen HUGE. It was overwhelming.
Iris wipes were used in Monster Movie and in s8’s Hunteri Heroici, I believe- trust SPN to be its freaky awesome self.
//It was like giant cockatoos had landed on those dames’ heads.//
Those were just distracting. How could they get through doors?? Ridiculous and gorgeous.
// I think he would be so pleased to hear that.//
He sounds a completely lovely guy tbh and it’s so great that he got this role- something really rich. He wasn’t one of those nice-yet-bumblingly-naive father figures that you get so often. A really solid character, which is why I feared for Edith when he went (and what a nasty death scene. Ugh.) Without him, she was indeed prey- but not because SHE was stupid- quite the opposite. Hiddleston’s character just knew exactly how to win her round. I mean, that letter? Manipulative as hell, and so clever.
//I want to see it again – and on the big screen – it really is meant to be seen HUGE.//
So true- I saw it in a near-empty cinema as well- it just expanded to fill my entire brain. Most genuinely scary films have my covering my eyes (I spent The Babadook with my face in someone else’s shoulder). But it was just impossible to look away here.
Though I have to say- what is it with del Toro and smashing people’s faces in?
Okay, Sheila, you’ve convinced to see “Crimson Red”. I usually stay away from horror movies like the plague. The last one I remember seeing that scared the living shit out of me but I thoroughly enjoyed the scare was “The Haunting” (the original British version, not the Liam Neeson version).
But your review, everyone’s comments, and the references to Shirley Jackson, Notorious, Pacific Rim (I thought I was the only person who loved that movie), the episode in Supernatural (which I loved because the girl also changes because she has to) and of course, Jim Beaver, I have to go see it.
Oh Jeez The Haunting. Terrifying!!
Yeah, Crimson Peak was marketed as a horror movie but it’s really not. It’s a Gothic haunted-house story, really – and there are some scary moments (and the whole British “mansion” falling into ruin is scary in and of itself) – but it’s really just psychological disturbing rather than gory Gotcha-scare horror. So I think you will thrill to the visuals/acting.
And Pacific Rim!!! Yes, I love that movie very much. I always tear up when Idris Elba, whom I love, makes his heroic sacrificial choice. That whole character was great. And I loved the relationship between the two main characters – man and woman – I forget their names now. The hottie gorgeous hero of Pacific Rim was also in Crimson Peak in a totally different kind of character and I wouldn’t have thought he could believably play a Victorian-era gentleman but he totally does. He’s wonderful.
And Jim Beaver with a gorgeous huge curly beard, and a watch-chain, and concerned sharp look in his eyes. It’s a beautiful performance and really dominates the first third of the film.
Would love to hear your response once you see it!
Just saw this last night and I loved it. I think part of the problem with the critical response to del Toro’s work is that people keep expecting him to make another Pan’s Labyrinth. Which was a masterpiece in my opinion, but it’s not fair to expect him to do that every time. Or even to WANT to do that. For some reason when GdT announces he’s baking a cake critics expect a fancy vanilla torte flavored with lavender and are shocked when they get a towering chocolate monstrosity topped with cherries and whipped cream. But that’s what del Toro likes! If he wanted subtlety his films would be totally different. He likes lushness and huge emotions and every genre convention he ever met. Which is what makes him such a fun director, in my opinion.
Crimson Peak is not a modern gothic romance. It is a gothic romance, period. There’s no winking at the audience or ironic distance here. If you tone down the sex and violence a bit (holy knife fights, batman) it could have been made in the 1940’s. The costuming just blew me away. All those gorgeous buttery yellows on Edith. And the way they dressed Lucille was one of the best examples of storytelling through costuming I’ve ever seen. The raised spine on her red dress! She looked like an anatomical diagram, the ones of musculature.
I think you’re right that there are very real emotions under all the grand guignol dramatics. Major SPOILERS to follow – Edith’s grief over her father was so real it was harrowing to watch, and honestly so was Lucille wailing over Thomas’s body. They were such interesting monsters, those two, because ultimately they were so sad. One of very few things that didn’t work for me in the film was the tossed off reference to Lucille being institutionalized because it really doesn’t matter whether she’s crazy or not. The things she does come out of very simple motivations like fear and desperation; in many ways she’s the most pathetic creature in the whole film. Which is the scariest thing of all.
There’s a moment in the end when Thomas is trying to calm Lucille down and he says something about how all of them, meaning Edith as well, could just leave and go somewhere and live together and it’s so deluded, it’s the furthest from reality anything could possibly be. And so sad and so scary. Because what universe is he living in that any of that could happen. It’s like he and Lucille have so much become one organism that he assumes because he loves Edith then Lucille must also be able to love Edith. But there is no room in her soul for anyone but Thomas. And the house: she hates the house, she IS the house. Their horrible stinking bell jar of a childhood made sure she could never be any other way.
This movie takes its genre to a logical conclusion. All the themes that are subtextual in gothic fiction it makes literal. Plus it gave us iris wipes in 2015, so I don’t see anything to complain about.
Forgive me for posting a year later! But I absolutely ADORE this movie so very much. I can honestly say it is one of my favorite films of all time (and admittedly, I am not “well traveled” when it comes to films). The reason for this is because it contained absolutely everything I love (including the macabre and bloody bits) and was put into a 2 hour movie. I adore anything with a tinge of gothic to it, particularly the Edwardian/Victorian era, so this movie gave me that treat (it was 95% gothic lets be honest, not a tinge).
I also adore the soundtrack too, very dramatic and classical, again something else I love..the use of actual instruments :P.
I know some people did not like this movie or thought it repetitive, unoriginal etc, but those people do not get what Guillermo Del Toro was trying to do here, and in my opinion succeeded in doing-combining lots of different (large and small) elements from gothic literature, film and other loves of his (like the ghosts/monsters) etc. It’s just perfection to me. It’s so beautiful to look at, I adore Allerdale Hall (yes I know it needs some refurbishments but it’s more natural state is what draws me in lol).
Lately, I have been desperately trying to find other movies like Crimson Peak. I actually spent a good few hours browsing the net doing so the other night (as I did when the film came out). I did find Rebecca (Hitchcock film) and a few others, however, and I feel kind of snobbish admitting it, the fact that these films are now so old kind of takes the appeal out of it for me, particularly those in black and white. It’s the colors and scenic backgrounds/costumes I want to enjoy. I should add, this doesn’t put me off of actually watching these older classics, but I don’t anticipate them as such.
I would love to find a movie that really mirrors this, particularly in look/aesthetic and also in characters (Mainly Edith and Lucille who I ended up loving). I loved Edith for her bravery and I loved Lucille for her vulnerabilities and how life in many ways really screwed her over in what was once a very sensitive soul I am guessing.
None of my friends could understand me when after seeing the film, I said how I sympathized with Lucille the most. The whole summary of the movie is in that one look Lucille (played amazingly by Jessica Chastain) gives Thomas’ ghost when she turns to see him one final time. Heartbreaking!
Basically I could watch a prequel, midquel and sequel of Crimson Peak (unlikely to happen and realistically no, it shouldn’t happen…though I do think a prequel would work…particularly in TV series format, but that’s just my own dream and fantasy).
AND I am going to stop typing because I really could talk about Crimson Peak forever. And ever.