★★★★
Blanketed in a glow of otherworldliness and embracing all that is and all that isn’t Guillermo del Toro is his latest aesthetically charged thriller, Crimson Peak.
Signature stylings in the form of elongated-limbed creatures, heightened colourisations, confrontational gore and tongue-in-cheek humour abound, but atypical to the director, they’re coupled with a steampunk/Elizabethan-based storyline that scrimps heavily on the fantasy.
Essentially, what remains is a ghost story laced with a humble romance – just enough to read to our sentimentalities and implant an air of redemption for the wrongs that have been made, though not enough to make us care about them. Who we inevitably do end up caring for is the victim: Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska). Young and impressionable, her story begins much like something Austen would have written – she is an aspiring writer, born into privilege, who quickly becomes taken with Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) after he appeals to her father to invest in his mining machine.
The story quickly spirals from classic tale to something more sinisterly Pride And Prejudice And Zombies (minus the zombies) as Edith finds herself in Thomas’ home, a decaying and isolated mansion on the top of a hill. By day, he strives to mine the red clay buried deep beneath the floorboards. By night, ghosts scatter out of the house, rich in the reds of the clay from below, like blood oozing from its pores, haunting Edith at every turn.
Rich and decadent aesthetics come as standard with Del Toro and are understandably one of the most sublime points of Crimson Peak, as is the arsenal of onscreen talent. Wasikowska captures with Edith innocence and beauty, charm and strength, while Hiddleston romances all with his dashing wiles. But even more brilliant than both is the stoic face that is Jessica Chastain. Perhaps better known for more sympathetic roles (Interstellar, The Help and The Martian), her performance as Lucille Sharpe is masterfully cold and astutely conniving. There’s little to love about her, and that’s exactly what is to love about her.
Beware. There really are things that go bump in the night. And they’re not to be messed with.
Crimson Peakis in cinemas now.
