For the most part of Guillermo del Toro’s new romance-horror film, “Crimson Peak”, there is so much supply of visual elegance to invite its audience into the gothic atmosphere it tries to create.
At one moment, the effect is unspeakably overwhelming, drawing us immediately into its fold of darkness and mystery, but on another, when visual artistry isn’t anymore of any help other than conjuring up awestruck impressions, everything just runs out of sense. And when you step into the theater only to receive hair-rasing chills, an inundation of aesthetic gimmicks is the last thing you would probably want.
‘Crimson Peak’s efforts are primarily focused on perfecting its suggestively elaborate gothic decorations, that it loses grip of the story that it intends to deliver, hence failing to present a compelling and terror-inspiring horror.
If it is all the jawdropping imagery that matters most, then Del Torro has all the trophies with Crimson Peak. The haunting dilemmas of Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) would probably barely make a strong impression, and the ghoulish and grotesque forms of the film’s monsters would probably serve more of amusement rather than deliver terrifying horror.
But if I were to be less occupied by the film’s screaming visualized suggestions of terror, I’d probably have my attention fixated at how elegantly Wasikowska has pulled off her character’s mysterious demeanors. Her marriage to the dashing yet reserved, Sir Thomas Harpe (Tom Hiddleston), brings her at his old crumbing mansion in the rural England, only to be greeted by the horrifying secrets of her new home, and to the man she has just agreed to spend the rest of her life with. Her plight includes bearing the suspicions of Thomas’ mysterious sister, Lucille (Jessica Chastain).
At one point, she realizes that there is no escape, having persistently troubled by lurking spirits that roam in almost every dark corner of the mansion, and the threats become ever imminent. Wasikowska has a commendable maneuver of this struggle, and she has kept the mold of her character with some decency.
It is not a question whether Del Torro has established the haunting milieus of Crimson Peak. His mastery of the genre screams in his choices of suggestive colors, of dark grim-inspired palettes that complement well the grotesqueness of his visual effects-perfected monsters.
But there isn’t a solid and engaging storyline to support the measure, and in the wake of this flaw, the narrative crumbles apart and fails to deliver the creeps needed for it to satisfy the film’s very own intents.
RATING: 6/10 (JE)
