Guillermo del Toro said that he wanted to do a Gothic-Romance with a big dash of horror to pay homage to, and to break a few rules of the genre. Crimson Peak starts off right away setting the tone by showing you a ghost within the first five minutes. We get a long creepy look as it utters a cryptic warning. We are then left wondering if perhaps showing a ghost so early in the production was too much of a reveal. But, hey, Hamlet started with a ghost as well and things got very dicey afterwards in that story. The audience is pulled into a Victorian setting with social parties and customs of the time. We wonder if the love our heroine feels is doomed from the start. And how can it possibly thrive when it’s nested in a grand house whose better days are well behind it? The house is like a gigantic decaying body, and we quickly come to feel that the tenants are worms. Crimson Peak is very pretty to look at—in a dusty, antique way. But we’re onto the hidden elements of the story early. The excitement comes from not knowing how the final cards are played. Black, white, gray, sepia, and red, lots of red, fill the color palette of this film. I give this nice homage to the Gothic Movie a solid five points, and then add a point for its having a dog with a name, and another point for easily passing the Bechdel Test.
