Director Guillermo del Toro’s most conspicuous talent is his aptitude for transforming the creakiest genre tale into a spectacle of sumptuous visuals and bracing sensations. So it is with his latest feature, the early 20th-century gothic mystery Crimson Peak. Properly titled Allendale Hall, the titular building is the decomposing seat of penniless British nobles Edward and Lucille Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain), siblings who have nothing else save their surname and a defunct clay mine. During a fundraising trip to America, Edward catches the eye of Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska), the erudite daughter of a wealthy industrialist. Contrary to her good instincts, Edith falls for Sir Edward’s charms, and in short order she is settling into Allendale as the aristocrat’s new wife. As if Lucille’s smoldering hostility weren’t menacing enough, ill omens of a supernatural sort abound: Edith, who has long evinced an ability to perceive spirits, is soon terrorized by shrieking apparitions that drip with scarlet ooze.
The screenplay by del Toro and Matthew Robbins is a gloomy romantic mystery in the tradition of Walpole, Poe, and the Brontës. The ghosts are not the story’s antagonists here, but its catalysts. The cast acquit themselves well enough, with Chastain’s deliciously campy but straight-faced performance the obvious standout. The true star of the film, however, is Crimson Peak itself, a jaw-dropping edifice of rotting gothic opulence, where moth swarms infest the crawlspaces and vermillion clay bubbles up through the floors. It’s a triumph of design, and del Toro’s film showcases its ghastly beauty so effectively and with such affection, one can overlook the musty predictability of the story. If nothing else, Crimson Peak accomplishes what the director’s underwhelming Pacific Rim never managed: successfully obscuring the wobbly bits of a guilty pleasure through the potency of evocative images and nail-biting thrills.
Crimson Peak opens Friday, October 16 in wide release.
