Set late in the 19th century, our movie opens with a battered Edith (Mia Wasikowska) standing in a snowy landscape announcing that she believes in ghosts. The movie then picks up when she is ten years old and her mother died, only to return as a horrifying ghost who warns her to stay away from Crimson Peak. Fourteen years later, Edith is busy writing her great American novel - dismissed as a 'ghost story' by her publisher - when Baronet Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) arrives. Edith is enchanted by him but her father dislikes him. It is clear that Thomas and his sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain) have some plot in mind regarding Edith.
The ghosts that haunt Edith are the scariest part of the movie and also mostly irrelevant to the story. Beyond giving her a heads-up that she is in danger, they are mostly just there to offer the occasional scare. In that way, they mirror the book she has written, which she described not as a ghost story but a 'story with a ghost.' Though I generally like Tom Hiddleston - his turn as Loki in the Marvel Universe has been great fun - he just isn't charming enough to have so easily seduced Edith. Maybe if she had been portrayed as some plain Jane shut-in, I might have accepted it, but Edith is a very confident woman with strong opinions. And yet she is readily seduced when he compliments her writing. Another oddity was the apparent poverty of Sir Thomas. Later developments show that he had come into money but it has done him no good. Why not? Where did this money go?
Another interesting bit was the repeated warning from her mother. The first time, she was a child and may have dismissed it in adulthood. But then her mother returns, coincident with the arrival of Sir Thomas. And Sir Thomas has a mine that produces vibrant red clay. Hmm. Mother said to beware of Crimson Peak and this fellow arrives with a jar of brilliant red clay. Maybe I should ask about Crimson Peak? It just seems that she would be more aware of the color red. Of course, such warnings are not meant to be followed or there would be no movie.
The look of the film is very stylistic. Sir Thomas' manor house is in ruins. The roof is gone so that leaves and snow gather in a patch in the main hall. It is very odd to have the characters standing on the staircase and watching snow fall within the house. It was almost like a small courtyard. Of course, we know that Edith is wealthy and must wonder why there wasn't an immediate effort to patch the roof. Well, that would ruins some of the atmosphere of the place. The ghosts aren't the typical transparent phantoms that one expects. There are two primary types of ghost. First, we see the inky black ghost that has tendrils of black smoke trailing its movements. These were the scarier ones since they were more likely to grab her. BOO! Then there were the creepy red ones, that looked to be made of red clay. These looked to be skinned and transparent versions of the people they represented.
Doctor Alan McMichael (Charlie Hunnam) is an old friend of Edith's and apparently an avid reader of Arthur Conan Doyle. It is also clear that he has feelings for Edith and is distrustful of Sir Thomas. While Edith runs into ghosts in England, Alan detects back in America. He discovers something that sends him on a rescue mission to England where, despite his suspicions, he is utterly unprepared when his suspicions prove true. This was rather annoying. It was as if he was really bright up until the script required him to be stupid. And then he was.
Not great but worth seeing. Maybe wait for it on cable.
