Review: "Crimson Peak"

del Toro, Guillermo, “Crimson Peak”, Legendary Pictures, 2015.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a del Toro fan. When I heard that there was a new film in the wings I started itching to see it: given that I live miles from anything that could be considered a big franchise cinema, I had to wait until it screened here at Mt. Vic. Flicks, a month after its initial release. That’s no problem as far as I’m concerned: I can do without the crowds, the assigned seating (a new thing which is supposed to be an extra mark of customer care but which is just crap), the stench of popcorn (which makes me puke) and the inevitable tools who update their Facebook feeds all the way through the screening:

“Dudes! I’m like, watching ‘Crimson Peak’! It’s just started!”

“Dudes! It’s five minutes later and like, nothing’s happened yet!”

“Dudes! I’m starting to wish I’d gotten some popcorn. Mia Washacowski is HAWT!”

“Dudes!...” Well. You get the idea.

I had just had afternoon tea with friends at a cafe in Mt. Victoria and since rain prevented walking, we decided to ramble over to the cinema and see what fare was on offer. Encountering other ramblers who’d had similar ideas, we saw that “Crimson Peak” was about to start and so, sauntered in. A much more civilised way of going about things.

(Mind you, my recent “Rocky Horror” experience at this same venue was anything but civilised; however, I’m prepared to call that a blip rather than the norm!)

119 minutes later and I realised something had happened which I never thought I’d ever experience: a bad Guillermo del Toro film! Inconceivable! I mean “Pacific Rim” was touch-and-go, although it managed to rally itself in the third act, but this...? I’m still shaking my head. Let’s tear it apart...

The film falls into two halves: the first half is pure Edith Wharton, a sundrenched, steam-powered excursion to Buffalo in New York where Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) lives with her father, widower Carter Cushing, played by Jim Beaver (my favourite actor from “Supernatural”). Edith aspires to be a writer but faces rejection from her publisher due to her sex – she obviously hasn’t thought about changing her name to ‘George’ yet. Into their lives stalks the tailored silhouette of Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) seeking financial backing for a mining device that he has invented and keen to get Mr Cushing and his cronies as backers. With him stalks his equally-menacing sister Lucille Sharpe (Jessica Chastain). Sir Thomas woos Edith, tearing her away from her childhood amore Dr. Alan McMichael (Charlie Hunnam of “Pacific Rim” fame), but Carter smells a rat and sends in a private investigator to sniff about the errant nobles. Evidence of foul play is unearthed: Carter pays off the miscreants and sends them packing; however, before they depart, Carter Cushing is horribly murdered and Edith falls upon Sir Thomas’s plighted troth in her time of grief. They depart to Scotland, newly-wed.

As I said, this half is pure Edith Wharton, or maybe Henry James. It’s a society ball wrapped in a comedy of manners and social propriety, lavishly tailored with corsets and Gibson-girl hairdos. It’s practically a John Galsworthy novel in précis. There are many references to butterflies and moths all through the film and Mia Wasikowska’s Edith is the symbolic butterfly, pinned by nefarious inclinations: her gowns have incredibly puffy sleeves which are designed to give her a winged silhouette and sometimes they’re just plain distracting, although not as bad as the zippers that marred the costuming of Scorsese’s “Age of Innocence”. If this was the extent of the film, I’d be happier with it, especially Leslie Hope’s catty portrayal of Dr. McMichael’s society mother. Unfortunately, there’s the second half.

Scene change to Crimson Peak in the Scottish Highlands, so called because the red clay on top of which the house is built bleeds through the snow turning it red in Wintertime. Edith finds her new home somewhat less than welcoming: it’s dark; it’s dreary; there’s no heating; there’s a massive hole in the roof which lets in all kinds of weather; the place is subsiding into the boggy ground below; and Lucille has become less friendly and, in fact, downright sniffy overnight. Once we’re settled in, we begin to unearth the secrets that the grim manor is hiding. From here on in, it’s a railroad ride through a custom-made haunted house that was evidently del Toro’s visual hook for the movie, but away from which the story had wandered at some point, finding other rationales and purposes quite apart from the need for an open-house at the Addams’ Family Mansion. It’s frankly a mistake to drag the story back here, having made such inroads in the opening act, but del Toro does it anyway.

We discover that the Sharpe siblings have been ruthlessly wooing rich women and stripping them of their fortunes in an attempt to prop up and then escape their ancestral home. To this end they are now slowly poisoning Edith and keeping her a virtual prisoner in the cranky house, cutting her off from the outside world. Paperwork, signing over her fortune to Thomas Sharpe, dribbles in until there is just one final piece of penmanship left before the fortune is all theirs: Dr. McMichael wanders in at this point and makes a valiant attempt to flee with his childhood sweetheart. Knives flash, blood flies and the reunited lovers stagger away from the nightmare which had threatened to consume them. Credits roll.

Like I said, it’s a train ride to the finish. Nothing is really a surprise in the second half: the Sharpes are murdering Edith; evidence of their previous misdeeds spews forth in abundance; they are discovered sleeping together; the fact that one of them murdered Carter Cushing is revealed; they both die horribly. The only thing that did surprise me was the fact that Lucille didn’t end up getting chomped by the massive mining device which takes up so much of the landscape. This is del Toro channelling Edgar Alan Poe and not in a good way: if it had just been this half as the substance of the movie, or the first half extended out and left to do its own thing, the end result would have been fine. Instead it’s a mish-mash of two separate genre pieces not working together at all. At a certain point, this story became about something quite apart from ghosts and creepy houses; it’s just that del Toro refused to do the sensible thing and let those bits fall by the wayside.

Oh, and there are ghosts. Quite incidental and unnecessary ghosts, which contribute nothing concrete to the story. I just thought I’d mention that.

I guess everyone has to make a stinker at some point; I was hoping that “The Hobbit” was going to be del Toro’s. Obviously he was winding up for something bigger. This isn’t a good film, but it’s not horrific (if you take my meaning): it’s visually stunning, without any substance. It ticks all the del Toro boxes (except for the shoe fetish) but it’s just clunky and awkward. Let us draw a discreet veil across it...

Two Tentacled Horrors.