Reappraising Crimson Peak

Words by Liam Horgan

Guillermo del Toro has always been a man obsessed with the weird and macabre. From his debut film Cronos (1993), it was clear where del Toro’s genre leanings fell. His subsequent films truly showcased the director’s talent as a versatile storyteller who easily traversed blockbuster films and smaller more intimate projects. Today del Toro is known for his more successful films like Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) and the Best Picture winning, The Shape of Water (2017). In between these two projects came three of del Toro’s lesser acclaimed films, all of which are interesting in their own right. The three films consist of Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), Pacific Rim (2013) and Crimson Peak (2015). Hellboy II was del Toro’s sequel to his earlier 2004 film, and Pacific Rim was an entertaining tribute to kaiju films. However, of the three films del Toro released, it's Crimson Peak which I feel is his most misunderstood film. 

Crimson Peak follows an aspiring author (Mia Wasikowska), in the Victorian era, who travels to a remote Gothic mansion in the English hills with her new husband (Tom Hiddleston) and his sister (Jessica Chastain). There, she must decipher the mystery behind the ghostly visions that haunt her new home. The film is a gothic romance, largely influenced by literary works like Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole. As a work of gothic romance, the film exceeds as a piece of work within the oeuvre of the genre. Overall, Crimson Peak performed moderately well at the box office, grossing $74 million worldwide against a $55 million budget. Critically the film had a more muted reception, with the production and direction praised but the overall plot and characters criticised. This can be reflected in the film’s various scores on review sites; IMDb has it at 6.5/10, Metacritic at 66% and Rotten Tomatoes at 72%. It’s been six years since del Toro’s films debuted and I feel as time has gone on the film has matured more than some of its contemporaries. In many ways I feel that part of the issue with the release of Crimson Peak is that it was marketed incorrectly.

The official trailer for Crimson Peak plays up the horror aspects of del Toro’s story, building up to the reveal of the ghostly presences in the film. My issue with the trailer is that it undersells what del Toro’s film actually is: a gothic romance. Gothic romance is a literary genre that typically tells a story that combines mystery and romance and is set in and around dark backgrounds or mysterious castles and houses. More often than not the stories would also be tinged with horror elements, which served a purpose to the plot that was more than just invoking terror. Based on these criteria this is exactly the ingredients that make up the dish that is Crimson Peak. During the press run of the film, del Toro never hid the fact that he considered the film to be a gothic romance but stubbornly the marketing for the film definitely led with the horror aspects.

Crimson Peak was released at a time when horror was going through a metamorphosis. In the early 2010s horror as a whole was coming off the back of a rise in found footage horror and torture porn films. Works like Paranormal Activity (2007) and Saw (2004) defined entire sub-genres and kicked off a slew of middling to mediocre copycats. By 2010, horror had become a saturated market with poor remakes, bad storytelling and should-be-one-off gimmicks frequently seen by audiences. In essence horror had lost its edge. The turning point for horror really came in 2013/2014. James Wan, a storyteller always one step ahead of the curve, released The Conjuring (2013) and Jennifer Kent released The Babadook (2014). These two films marked a crucial moment for horror evolution. Wan’s film took a classical approach to horror and updated it to blockbuster status, while Kent’s film took a personal story with subtext to acclaimed success. These two films were the sign of things to come: horror as a financially successful genre and as a way to tell intimate stories that touched on societal issues. The rest, as you know, is film history with films like Get Out (2017), It (2017), and Hereditary (2018) becoming critical and financial success stories. Like the films that were being made at the time, it’s remarkable in hindsight how Crimson Peak was going along with the current trend, despite being conceived ten years previously. It was clear that del Toro could see where horror would be heading. As he told deadline back in 2012; “I think people are getting used to horror subjects done as found footage or B-value budgets. I wanted this to feel like a throwback”.

Posters for The Conjuring (2013) and The Babadook (2014)

It’s hard not to see why the horror aspects of the film were used as the main marketing material. The ghost designs of del Toro’s story are beautiful. The spectres are played by frequent collaborators Doug Jones and Javier Botet who give the lost souls an ethereal otherworldly quality. The performances coupled with the vibrant red colour of the ghouls, truly makes Crimson Peak unique. Indeed, many of the images of the ghosts correlate to gothic figures within literature. The figure of Edith’s mother, all black and dressed in her funeral garb visually, is essentially an inverted Miss Havisham from Dickens’ Great Expectations. Alongside the unique creature design is the beautifully crafted Allerdale Hall. Del Toro has said before that his aim with Crimson Peak was to live up to haunted house films like Jack Clayton's The Innocents (1961) and Robert Wise's The Haunting (1963), and the film certainly nails that element of the film. Allerdale Hall is a stunning work of production by late designer Thomas E. Sanders. The house is at once instantly recognisable as an old Victorian country house and also overtly not of this world. It’s a beautiful work of art and a testament to the artists who worked on it. Its long twisting corridors and creaking door frames make the house itself a character of the film itself. Indeed, in the film’s tie-in novel this is essentially confirmed. However, like all gothic romances, the film is more than just its setting. 

An overlooked aspect of Crimson Peak are the characters. In works of gothic fiction, the characters are essential to the plot. They are often the driving force of the narrative both storywise and thematically. As a work of gothic romance Crimson Peak is no different. Seen in literary works like Wuthering Heights and Rebecca, gothic characters often represent the true horror lying beneath the supernatural. Characters like Mrs. Danvers and Heathcliff represent the darkness within humanity that is a core characteristic of the genre. Like the aforementioned work, the characters of Crimson Peak fall within the literary tradition. Unlike a lot of the work that inspired the film however, the female characters are front and centre in del Toro’s film. In many ways the character of Edith is the archetypal gothic romantic lead. She is a young woman, who faces a threat from her in-laws and investigates their misdeeds. Edith, however, is not helpless. Throughout the film Edith is shown to be a woman of intellect, eschewing traditional female roles in favour of her own independence. There are shades of other literary characters in Edith, her independence, passion for writing and lack of belief in love are clearly inspired by Louisa May Alcott’s Jo March. Nonetheless, Edith, like many things in del Toro’s film, is an inversion of the traditional female gothic lead. Edith is not defined by the men around her, rather she defines them. Take childhood friend and possible love interest Dr. Alan McMichael (played by Charlie Hunnam) as an example, Alan arrives to save Edith at the end of the film, only for Edith to save him. Indeed, Alan if anything fulfils the traditional female role, he is infatuated with Edith, he investigates the Sharpes and gets rescued at the end. He’s not exactly the gallant hero who saves the day. Likewise, the other male character defined by Edith is her husband, Thomas Sharpe. What’s remarkable about the character of Thomas in many ways is that the success of the character is in part due to the casting of Tom Hiddleston. Crimson Peak came out at a time when Hiddleston was known for playing the villainous Loki in the MCU. Unlike the more traditional villain of Loki however, Hiddleston’s Thomas is more complex. He is not the Byronic hero often found in gothic literature, nor is he the Bluebeard archetype. Thomas is wholly defined by the woman around him. His love for both Edith and Lucille is ultimately his downfall. Thomas, of all the characters, wears a mask throughout the film, repressing his true feelings and hiding behind the women in his life. He’s ultimately a naive man with boyish dreams. Edith allows Thomas to mature and eventually accept who he is, despite this meaning his downfall.

Edith and Lucille two diametrically opposed individuals.

If Edith is a modernised female lead, then the same can be said for the villainous Lucille. Unlike her brother, Lucille is fully aware of who she is and what she feels. She is the antagonist to Edith’s protagonist. She embodies various characters seen in gothic literature. She is the manipulative housekeeper, the secretive in-law, the murderous widow and so much more. Jessica Chastain embodies all of these characters in the film’s best performance. Lucille is both cold and calculating as she is emotional and passionate. She is every inch the driving antagonistic force of the film. Of the siblings it is she who is defined by Allerdale Hall:her home and her prison simultaneously. Lucille is at once repulsed by her home and obsessed with it. She is the keeper of the keys yet also the one locked in. It’s no surprise then that unlike her brother, Lucille’s spirit lingers in the home long after their time has passed. As the antagonist Lucille becomes the killer to Edith’s final girl. These roles are so often defined by the patriarchy. The killer is nearly always male, and the final girl is, well, a girl. This is Michael Myers and Laurie Strode, Leatherface and Sally Hardesty and of course Ghostface and Sidney Prescott. In contrast to these pairings however Edith is not defined by Lucille, nor is the pair’s relationship defined by their gender. It’s a small but key twist on an established cinematic trope. Unlike Thomas, Lucille does not show remorse for her killings, with the only exception being the killing of Thomas. Lucille is the only other character in the film who sees a ghost like Edith. It is her acceptance of her guilt for murdering Thomas and the hope that he is alive that is her downfall, as it allows Edith to land the killing blow.

Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak is not an outright horror film, it is a true gothic romance. This distinction means that Crimson Peak is worthy of reappraisal. As discussed above there are some key elements to del Toro’s film which attempt to invert standard tropes of the gothic genre and modernise his text for today. Recent years have seen a revival of gothic themed texts with critically acclaimed works like The Haunting of Hill House (2018), Lady Macbeth (2016) and Gretel & Hansel (2020). However, Crimson Peak still stands out as an earlier work that attempted to do something different. That’s not to say that there aren’t weak points to the film, but as a story full of character subversions and a refreshingly modern approach to an outdated genre, del Toro’s film is certainly worth revisiting.