Crimson Peak
Crimson Peak is a 2015 gothic romance film[5] directed by Guillermo del Toro and written by del Toro and Matthew Robbins. The film stars Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, Charlie Hunnam, and Jim Beaver. The story, set in Edwardian-era England, follows an aspiring author who travels to a remote Gothic mansion in Cumberland, England with her new husband and his sister. There, she must decipher the mystery behind the ghostly visions that haunt her new home.
Crimson Peak
- Guillermo del Toro
- Matthew Robbins
- Guillermo del Toro
- Callum Greene
- Jon Jashni
- Thomas Tull
- Legendary Pictures
- Double Dare You Productions
- September 25, 2015 (Fantastic Fest)
- October 16, 2015 (United States)
119 minutes[1]
English
$55 million[4]
$74.7 million[4]
In 2006, a spec script written by Del Toro and Robbins was sold to Universal Pictures, with Del Toro set to direct. Development was delayed due to scheduling conflicts. The film was described as a "ghost story and gothic romance" heavily inspired by other horror films, such as The Haunting, The Innocents and The Shining. Principal photography began at Pinewood Toronto Studios in Toronto, Ontario on February 10, 2014, with additional filming in Hamilton, and ended on May 16 that year. The film was produced by Legendary Pictures and Del Toro's production company, Double Dare You Productions.
Crimson Peak premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 25, 2015, and was released in the United States on October 16, 2015 in standard and IMAX formats. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with many praising the production values, performances and direction, but criticized the plot and characters. It grossed $74 million worldwide against its $55 million budget. The film received three nominations at the 21st Empire Awards, including Best Horror. It received nine nominations at the 42nd Saturn Awards, winning three, including Best Horror Film, Best Supporting Actress for Chastain and Best Production Design for Thomas E. Sanders.
Plot[edit]
In 1887 Buffalo, New York, American heiress Edith Cushing, daughter of wealthy businessman Carter Cushing, is visited by her mother's ghost who warns, "Beware of Crimson Peak."
In 1901, Edith is now a budding author, and meets English baronet Sir Thomas Sharpe and his sister, Lucille. Thomas seeks investors for his invention, a digging machine to revive his family's clay mines, but Mr. Cushing rejects his proposal. Thomas and Edith become romantically attached, leading her father to hire a private detective who uncovers unsavory facts about the Sharpe siblings. Mr. Cushing bribes them to leave America, forcing Thomas to "break Edith's heart" by disparaging her and her novel.
Thomas returns Edith's manuscript with a letter explaining his actions, and they reconcile. Mr. Cushing is brutally murdered, raising the suspicions of Edith's childhood friend, Dr. Alan McMichael. Thomas marries Edith — giving her a ring taken from Lucille — and they arrive at Allerdale Hall, the Sharpes' dilapidated Cumberland mansion, which is sinking into the red clay mine below. Lucille plies Edith with tea made from "firethorn berries", and Thomas persuades her to put her father's fortune toward his machine. He mentions that the estate is referred to as "Crimson Peak" due to the warm red clay seeping through the winter snow.
Edith begins to notice Thomas' absence from their shared bedroom during the night. She eventually grows weak and begins coughing up blood, plagued by nightmares and visited by gruesome red ghosts around Allerdale. One of the spirits tricks her into opening a closet, where she discovers wax phonograph cylinders, before chasing her into the cellars, where she finds a locked trunk engraved with the name "Enola". Thomas takes Edith on a trip to the local post office, where she receives a letter addressed to E. Sharpe. Snowed in for the night, they finally make love, which Lucille is infuriated to learn.
Edith steals a key from Lucille bearing the inscription "Enola" and unlocks the trunk to find a gramophone and secret documents. Using the gramophone to listen to the audio recordings on the wax cylinders, and while reading the paper documents, Edith learns that Thomas previously married three other wealthy women — including Enola Sciotti, the letter’s intended recipient — and that Lucille has been poisoning Edith with tea as part of the siblings' "marriage and murder" scheme to finance Thomas' inventions. Edith confronts her husband and sister-in-law, catching them in an incestuous embrace, and Lucille pushes her from a balcony.
Alan has learned what Mr. Cushing uncovered about the Sharpes: Thomas's multiple marriages and Lucille's time in a mental institution. He travels to Allerdale Hall to rescue Edith, arriving just after she has been pushed. Tending to her injuries, Alan prepares to leave with Edith, but Lucille stabs him and demands that Thomas finish the job. Thomas, instead, inflicts a nonfatal stab wound to Alan before hiding him in the cellar.
Lucille forces Edith to sign a transfer deed granting the Sharpes ownership of her estate, and confesses to having murdered Thomas’ previous wives and having borne a child with Thomas that soon died — these are the ghosts who have appeared to Edith. Lucille admits to murdering Edith's father, as well as her own mother when she discovered Lucille and Thomas' sexual relationship. Edith stabs Lucille with her pen and flees, but is confronted by Thomas, who has truly fallen in love with her. He burns the deed and begs his sister to join him and Edith in a new life together, but an enraged Lucille stabs him to death. She pursues Edith with the cleaver she used to kill her mother, but is halted by Thomas' ghost, allowing Edith to kill her with a shovel. Edith silently bids Thomas farewell before he vanishes.
Edith and Alan are rescued by the villagers, and Lucille becomes the ghost of Allerdale Hall, playing her piano for eternity.
The end credits imply that Edith has written a novel based on her experiences, titled Crimson Peak.
Analysis[edit]
Ghosts Metaphors[edit]
In Crimson Peak,[23] the haunting presence of ghosts transcends mere spectral apparitions, serving as powerful metaphors that enrich the film's narrative depth and its thematic complexity. Set against the backdrop of a decaying English mansion shrouded in secrets, the film weaves a tale of love, betrayal, and lingering shadows of the past. The film immerses viewers in a world where the boundaries between the living and the dead blur. These literal ghosts, trapped in a liminal space between life and death, serve as reminders of the unresolved traumas and secrets that haunt the mansion and its inhabitants. Yet, beyond their spectral form, beyond Edith's reasoning that "the ghost is just a metaphor, for the past",[24] the ghosts of Crimson Peak also manifest metaphorically, haunting the characters' psyches and symbolizing their regrets, and the consequences of their actions.
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
Crimson Peak grossed $31.1 million in North America and $43.6 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $74.7 million, against a budget of $55 million.[4]
In the United States and Canada, the film opened simultaneously with Bridge of Spies, Goosebumps, and Woodlawn, on October 16, 2015, in 3,501 theaters, as well as IMAX and premium large formats.[42] Pre-release tracking projected the film to open to around $15–20 million.[43][44] It made $855,000 from its early Thursday night showings at 2,178 theaters and $5.2 million on its opening day.[45][46] It ended up opening to $12.8 million, with IMAX comprising $2.3 million from 365 IMAX theaters. The film suffered from a very competitive PG-13 adult market where such films as The Martian and Bridge of Spies were overperforming. Women represented 60% of the film's audience with 55% 25 or older.[47][48]
Outside North America, Crimson Peak opened in 66 countries. It earned $13.6 million in its opening weekend from 55 territories.[49] It opened at No. 2 in Russia and the CIS ($2.6 million; behind The Martian) and Spain ($1.1 million) and No. 5 in the U.K., Ireland and Malta ($1.5 million).[49] It opened in Belgium, Greece, Israel, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Trinidad around October 22–23.[49][50]
Critical response[edit]
Crimson Peak received positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 73% approval rating based on 284 reviews, with an average rating of 6.60/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Crimson Peak offers an engaging – albeit somewhat slight – diversion driven by a delightfully creepy atmosphere and director Guillermo del Toro's brilliant knack for unforgettable visuals."[51] Metacritic gives the film a score of 66 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[52] On CinemaScore, audiences gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.[53]
After attending an early screening, horror writer Stephen King called the film "gorgeous and just fucking terrifying", and said it "electrified" him like Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead, whose distribution he helped secure with a rave review in 1982. King's son, writer Joe Hill, called Crimson Peak "del Toro's blood-soaked Age of Innocence, a gloriously sick waltz through Daphne du Maurier territory".[54] IGN reviewer Scott Collura gave the film an 8.5 out of 10 score, saying, "Featuring memorable performances, amazing production design, and a hard edge that is too often lacking in horror films these days, it nonetheless also manages to subvert some long-standing tropes about the gothic romance genre which inspired it."[55] Writing on Roger Ebert's official website and giving the movie four stars out of four, Sheila O'Malley said "Watching del Toro's films is a pleasure because his vision is evident in every frame. Best of all, though, is his belief that 'what terrifies him will terrify others.' He's right."[56] Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph wrote that "Its sombre sincerity and hypnotic, treasure-box beauty make Crimson Peak feel like a film out of time – but Del Toro, his cast and his crew carry it off without a single postmodern prod or smirk. The film wears its heart on its sleeve, along with its soul and most of its intestines."[57] The Guardian lead film critic Peter Bradshaw gave the film four stars out of five, wrote that "Guillermo del Toro's gothic fantasy-romance Crimson Peak is outrageously sumptuous, gruesomely violent and designed to within an inch of its life."[58] Observer critic Mark Kermode considered it the director's best film since Pan's Labyrinth and noted the various gothic and horror influences - including Sheridan Le Fanu, Robert Stevenson's Jane Eyre, and Hitchcock's Rebecca - on "one of the year's most handsomely mounted productions."[59]
Dan Jolin of Empire wrote that "It may be a little overwrought for some tastes, borderline camp at points, but if you're partial to a bit of Victorian romance with Hammer horror gloop and big, frilly night-gowns, GDT delivers an uncommon treat."[60] Bilge Ebiri of Vulture wrote that "It doesn't always seem to know what it wants to be. But it's still full of marvels."[61] Sara Stewart of the New York Post wrote that "Chastain and Wasikowska take center stage while Hiddleston flutters around like one of Allerdale's huge black moths. Watching the women square off within del Toro's eye-popping, painterly palette is a feast for the eyes, if not particularly substantial fare for the mind."[62] A.O. Scott of The New York Times wrote that "The film is too busy, and in some ways too gross, to sustain an effective atmosphere of dread. It tumbles into pastiche just when it should be swooning and sighing with earnest emotion."[63] Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post wrote that "The film by the stylish fantasist Guillermo del Toro looks marvelous, but has a vein of narrative muck at its core."[64] Tom Huddleston of Time Out London wrote that "All three actors work hard... and when the melodrama hits fever pitch, Crimson Peak lurches into life. But overall this lacks weight and intensity: a Brontë-esque bauble smeared in twenty-first-century slickness."[65] Peter Debruge of Variety wrote that "Aflame with color and awash in symbolism, this undeniably ravishing yet ultimately disappointing haunted-house meller is all surface and no substance, sinking under the weight of its own self-importance into the sanguine muck below."[66] Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly wrote that "Crimson Peak is a cobwebs-and-candelabras chamber piece that's so preoccupied with being visually stunning it forgets to be scary."[67]