Crim­son Peak

Although it may not have been plain­ly evi­dent through the mech­a­nised, city-lev­el­ling pan­de­mo­ni­um, Guiller­mo del Toro’s sub­lime 2013 fea­ture Pacif­ic Rim is, at heart, a love sto­ry. It employs the metal­lic out­er body of a nuclear-pow­ered bat­tle robot to deliv­er swoon­ing obser­va­tions on the com­pat­i­bil­i­ty of Earth’s last sol­diers – their minds patched togeth­er – who help­less­ly dan­gle mere meters away from their gory demise at the hands inter­galac­tic Hell beasts. A song of two humans indeed.

It would seem obvi­ous to point out the fleshy con­nec­tive tis­sue that exists between del Toro’s new film, an ivy-swad­dled snow globe called Crim­son Peak, and his laud­ed Span­ish-lan­guage fairy tales The Devil’s Back­bone and Pan’s Labyrinth. How­ev­er, what if this was actu­al­ly the sec­ond part of a dip­tych about love, oblique­ly paired with Pacif­ic Rim? And these aren’t cel­e­bra­tions of love, or exam­i­na­tions of what love dri­ves us towards (and, of course, away from), but attempts to define it, present it with­in con­texts sel­dom considered.

The love in Crim­son Peak reveals its true nature in the lat­ter fur­longs of the film, and so can­not be dis­cussed direct­ly for fear of spoil­er-based chas­tise­ment. But maybe what the film ends up say­ing is that love and fear are, if not mere­ly very sim­i­lar, then in fact one and the same thing. Mia Wasikows­ka is the flick­er­ing can­dle light illu­mi­nat­ing the dark pas­sage­way of des­tiny as dain­ty hero­ine Edith Cush­ing, a bud­ding writer of sto­ries which – coin­ci­den­tal­ly – tran­scend easy genre com­part­men­tal­i­sa­tion. She is finan­cial­ly com­fort­able, resid­ing as she does in the twin­kling lap of lux­u­ry with her indus­tri­al­ist father. Buf­fa­lo, NY is shown as being at the fore­front of tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment, and Crim­son Peak sug­gests that cor­po­rate progress of this inhu­mane vari­ety doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly result in happiness.

Tom Hid­dle­ston goes full steam­punk pin-up as Baronet Thomas Sharpe, humil­i­at­ed in his attempts to secure com­ple­tion funds for a new clay bur­row­ing device which he claims will rev­o­lu­tionise the con­struc­tion indus­try. In this sit­u­a­tion, one can’t help but see Ol’ Tom as a proxy for del Toro him­self, trav­el­ling the globe and attempt­ing to con­vince hard busi­ness­men to part with funds so he can build his exot­ic con­trap­tions. Through­out the film, Del Toro con­stant­ly strives for self def­i­n­i­tion by way of small styl­is­tic tics or sto­ry details, at one point even stat­ing point blank what a metaphor is. But these are for­giv­able as gen­tle the­mat­ic hand-holds rather than full-on hectoring.

In tow with Tom is his sis­ter, Lucille (Jes­si­ca Chas­tain), who wears the blood-red gown to the all-white dance par­ty. Their plan is to spir­it Edith away to Allerdale Hall, their crum­bling goth­ic stack in Cum­bria, Eng­land, and so Tom needs to turn up the charm (a sim­ple task), result­ing in a spell­bind­ing high-stakes dance sequence that appears out of nowhere. The sib­lings have antag­o­nised Edith’s father, but before he can chase them out of town, he has his face ten­derised on the edge of a porce­lain wash basin by a mys­tery assailant. Much like the sud­den and sick­en­ing wine bot­tle head cav­ing which occurs in Pan’s Labyrinth, Del Toro insists on show­ing this act of extreme bru­tal­i­ty from all van­tages. We see the before, and we see the after.

Some may chalk this moment up as gauche and unnec­es­sary, a piece of shock show­man­ship which dou­bles as an emp­ty attempt to momen­tar­i­ly put the wind up the view­er. Yet there’s some­thing espe­cial­ly inter­est­ing about the fact that it occurs in such pris­tine envi­rons, that this self-built sanc­tu­ary decked out with only the most desir­able and robust fur­ni­ture ulti­mate­ly con­tributes to the death of its own­er. This motif, of our cho­sen sur­round­ings being the thing that even­tu­al­ly kills us, fea­tures in Hell­boy, Blade II, and The Devil’s Back­bone, and is re-played lat­er in this film, albeit on a much grander scale.

In Crim­son Peak, hous­es are repos­i­to­ries for mem­o­ries. Edith must flea Buf­fa­lo in order to relin­quish the fond mem­o­ries of her life with father. Mean­while Tom and Lucille must return to their home, even though it’s sub­sid­ing into the ground and wax-like red clay seeps erot­i­cal­ly through the floor­boards and walls. The mem­o­ries encased with­in the gild­ed arch­es and hand-carved fix­tures remain a secret until the last, but it’s a secret which reveals a clever reverse-log­ic to the moti­va­tions of all par­ties. Now Tom’s bride and par­ti­tioned from civil­i­sa­tion, Edith must use her wiles (and an ornate can­de­labra) to dis­cov­er the truth about the Sharpes.

Del Toro has appar­ent­ly been hand­ing out lit­er­a­ture at pre­view screen­ings of this new film explain­ing that it is not a hor­ror movie but a clas­si­cal goth­ic romance. That the ini­tial wave of trade reviews com­plained of it being not scary enough per­haps jus­ti­fies his action. What is mirac­u­lous about Crim­son Peak – and per­haps con­firms it as ​“not a hor­ror film” – is how sad it ends up being. It’s very easy to say some­one is evil and then cor­ral an audi­ence into bay­ing for their blood. It’s real­ly not so easy to say some­one is evil, then plead a con­vinc­ing case for their redemp­tion. This is the stun­ning high-wire feat that del Toro achieves, and it’s down in no small part to a trio of stun­ning cen­tral per­for­mances which meld pan­tomime sauci­ness with lay­ers of under­stand­ing, pas­sion and empa­thy (MVP hon­ours go to Chas­tain, however).

Though the writer/director’s fas­ci­na­tion with the anti­quat­ed and arcane shines through most bright­ly, this is a film of count­less sim­ple plea­sures. Del Toro knows how to move a cam­era to build ten­sion, how to shoot an inte­ri­or to make it feel daunt­ing­ly open yet claus­tro­pho­bi­cal­ly closed at the same time, and how to real­ly make you feel the pres­ence of the three prin­ci­ples even when they are not in the frame. The film pays lip ser­vice to goth­ic chillers like Gaslight and The Inno­cents, but it also chan­nels Hitch­cock (par­tic­u­lar­ly Psy­cho and Noto­ri­ous), Ham­mer mae­stro Ter­ence Fish­er, Polan­s­ki (The Ten­ant and Cul-De-Sac) even Min­nel­li. The film’s great­est vic­to­ry, how­ev­er, it that it val­ues roman­ti­cism over cyn­i­cism. It is a love sto­ry, a masochis­tic and vio­lent one admit­ted­ly, but once which has us set­ting our fob watch­es for the final chap­ter in what looks to be an enchant­i­ng trilogy.