A great story that gets lost in its crimson muck.
Crimson Peak fails to cash in on its stellar cast. We have Hiddleston, Chastain, Wasikowska, and Del Toro’s golden goose Hunnam, doing the honours through their brilliant acting. We have got the horror pro Toro in the vanguard running the reels. Still, what goes wrong?
Twenty minutes into the movie and you are suddenly hit by a disgusting rock of indifference. You don’t want to watch it any further, because things aren’t exactly exciting or frantic for that to matter. The introduction of the characters to the tale is sour. The score hobbles from the mysterious violin to occasional piano notes without imparting it a proper depth. It struggles with its ghost without any explanations.
Edith played by Mia sways expressionless and sometimes distant in her period attire. Thomas and Edith chemistry doesn’t ignite sparks either, and you begin to wonder how mediocre love could be. The latter was supposed to be deliberate. However, it all looked too dramatic to be true which, I believe, Toro could have worked upon more.
But then comes the first crime, and suddenly you are handed over a purpose in crimson gore. There is blood and a secret that Hiddleston eyes hide, and you begin doubting the Sharpes at once. Jessica Chastain is brilliant as Lucille Sharpe, but not good enough. She is shadowed mostly for a considerable amount of time before she shows her true colors. Hunnam is lost in a role that could have used some more gravity. But poor editing literally chops him off.
Ghosts in the movie like Edith’s manuscript’s characters are metaphorical and were depicted nicely. It would be foolish for people to turn in to watch this flick assuming it to be of horror genre. It was more like crime.
Some of the bits in the movie were great to watch. The story was holed up gorgeously, waiting quietly to unfold itself into a marvelous thriller, which it did halfway. The blood, the deaths and the stabbings were brutal but brilliantly depicted. Screenplay wasn’t exactly great, but some of the lines used in the movie were really the alerting kind. Watch out for Lucille’s lines on love in the end where she describes love to be twisted.
What turned me off big time was how this movie could have become more. There was supposed to be poetry in the flick’s crimson clay. The house that breathed of a dreadful past and bled tears of red every night. It all died down in a jiffy on a quick revelation, which was just sad. There wasn’t much tension building in the flick that would compel you to bite your fingernails, which was also another crucial factor amiss.
Recommend it for the story alone.
Crimson Peak
Pros
- Great plot
- Good direction
- Thrilling movie
- Movie unfurls crime gorgeously
Cons
- Succumbs to mediocrity
- Love chemistry shoddy
- Beginning part quite jaded
