Just in time for Halloween, visual stylist director Guillermo Del Toro goes back to his Oscar winning Pan's Labyrinth look and feel with Crimson Peak, a gothic horror thriller that is also a glossy soap opera that's reminiscent of the twist and turns that prevalent in the telenovelas that's popular in the director's home country of Mexico.
The lead character Edith Cushing perfectly played by porcelain beauty Mia Wasikowska (Disney's Alice in Wonderland) is an American heiress living in Buffalo, New York at the start of the 20th century. Her simple ambition in life is to be a writer like Mary Shelley who wrote Frankenstein. She lost her mom to cholera at a young age and her father Carter (Jim Beaver) a self-made engineer only wants the best for her.
Edith also has the supernatural ability to communicate with ghosts and the one of her mom warns her "beware of Crimson Peak".
Against the wishes of her father who wanted their family friend doctor (Charlie Hunnam from TV's Sons of Anarchy) for her to settle down with, she met and got attracted to a mysterious British inventor Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) and after a tragic situation marries and moves to his run down and desolate estate across the Atlantic. With his sister Lucille (the always great Jessica Chastain) always at Thomas' side, Edith will soon discover something that the ghosts had always warned and it's not what you expect.
The cast is first rate and the film's production design is vintage Del Toro. There are grotesque scenes but the visual splendor overpowers the carnage and bloodbath. Despite it's plot that mirrors the classic film The Heiress (1949), Crimson Peak is gorgeous entertainment best seen on the big screen.
The cast is first rate and the film's production design is vintage Del Toro. There are grotesque scenes but the visual splendor overpowers the carnage and bloodbath. Despite it's plot that mirrors the classic film The Heiress (1949), Crimson Peak is gorgeous entertainment best seen on the big screen.
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