Crimson Peak (15.)
Directed by Guillermo Del Toro.
Starring Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, Charlie Hunnam, Burn Gorman and Jim Beaver. 119 mins.
Guillermo del Toro certainly talks a good film. He seems to have persuaded swathes of fans and producers that he is a visionary talent and his back catalogue of unmade films is among the most impressive of any director. Fans talk wistfully of his if-onlys: the del Toro version of The Hobbit; his film of Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness; hell, some even pine for Pacific Rim 2. Yet the films he's actually made exhibit a determined and constant shade of meh. (Yes, even Pan's bloody Labyrinth.) "If only the shallow Hollywood would give him the money to fulfil his vision." Well maybe Hollywood is still feeling burnt by his ability to take tens of millions of their dollars and turn it into a pig's ear. Quite a pretty, even sumptuous pig's ear, mind.
He has excelled himself with his latest effort, a loving but almost farcically uninvolving attempt to make a Victorian supernatural Gothic romance. In the late 19th century aspiring American novelist Wasikowska is sneered at as a Jane Austen, but defiantly belives that she's a Mary Shelley. She's somewhere in the middle. Her film is like The Shining rewritten by Emily Bronte. The only child of a wealthy American industrialist, she is swept off her feet by Brit nobleman Hiddleston and goes off to Cumberland as his wife to live in his sprawling derelict mansion alongside the sinister sister Chastain. You really could probably guess the rest.
Del Boy has a prestigious cast to play with but it is the enormous set for the mansion that is the real star. This absurdly Gothic pile is so overly dark and sinister that even the Addams Family might think it a bit much. The water in the pipes runs red due to the red clay beneath, there is mould everywhere and it is so derelict that there is a massive hole in the roof, so often snow falls in the hallway. How much more Gothic can this place be – answer, none; none more Gothic. Oh and it's full of ghosts, beautiful CGI creations that float through walls. The plan no doubt was for this enormous and intricate set to dominate the film and draw us into its world but it does the opposite really. The long white corridors of Kubrick's Overlook hotel were so laden with menace because anything that broke through their bland and ordinary exterior was a real shock. The normalcy hid great depths of terror.
The macabre fun palace in Crimson Peak has externalised all its threat and menace, so much so that it doesn't have any. The idea that the clay under the ground soaks up and turns the snow red in winter, thus giving the film its title, would be a nice touch in any other film but it goes for nothing here. It's difficult to know what depravity could happen in these rooms that could stand out against the wallpaper. Crimson Peak is unscary in exactly the way that forced and frantic wackiness is unfunny. In that sense the Crimson Peak set is the horror movie equivalent of Noel's House Party's Crinkly Bottom. Because he can't generate even a basic level of suspense del Toro has to compensate by having characters stabbed in the face.
Directed by Guillermo Del Toro.
Starring Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, Charlie Hunnam, Burn Gorman and Jim Beaver. 119 mins.
Guillermo del Toro certainly talks a good film. He seems to have persuaded swathes of fans and producers that he is a visionary talent and his back catalogue of unmade films is among the most impressive of any director. Fans talk wistfully of his if-onlys: the del Toro version of The Hobbit; his film of Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness; hell, some even pine for Pacific Rim 2. Yet the films he's actually made exhibit a determined and constant shade of meh. (Yes, even Pan's bloody Labyrinth.) "If only the shallow Hollywood would give him the money to fulfil his vision." Well maybe Hollywood is still feeling burnt by his ability to take tens of millions of their dollars and turn it into a pig's ear. Quite a pretty, even sumptuous pig's ear, mind.
He has excelled himself with his latest effort, a loving but almost farcically uninvolving attempt to make a Victorian supernatural Gothic romance. In the late 19th century aspiring American novelist Wasikowska is sneered at as a Jane Austen, but defiantly belives that she's a Mary Shelley. She's somewhere in the middle. Her film is like The Shining rewritten by Emily Bronte. The only child of a wealthy American industrialist, she is swept off her feet by Brit nobleman Hiddleston and goes off to Cumberland as his wife to live in his sprawling derelict mansion alongside the sinister sister Chastain. You really could probably guess the rest.
Del Boy has a prestigious cast to play with but it is the enormous set for the mansion that is the real star. This absurdly Gothic pile is so overly dark and sinister that even the Addams Family might think it a bit much. The water in the pipes runs red due to the red clay beneath, there is mould everywhere and it is so derelict that there is a massive hole in the roof, so often snow falls in the hallway. How much more Gothic can this place be – answer, none; none more Gothic. Oh and it's full of ghosts, beautiful CGI creations that float through walls. The plan no doubt was for this enormous and intricate set to dominate the film and draw us into its world but it does the opposite really. The long white corridors of Kubrick's Overlook hotel were so laden with menace because anything that broke through their bland and ordinary exterior was a real shock. The normalcy hid great depths of terror.
The macabre fun palace in Crimson Peak has externalised all its threat and menace, so much so that it doesn't have any. The idea that the clay under the ground soaks up and turns the snow red in winter, thus giving the film its title, would be a nice touch in any other film but it goes for nothing here. It's difficult to know what depravity could happen in these rooms that could stand out against the wallpaper. Crimson Peak is unscary in exactly the way that forced and frantic wackiness is unfunny. In that sense the Crimson Peak set is the horror movie equivalent of Noel's House Party's Crinkly Bottom. Because he can't generate even a basic level of suspense del Toro has to compensate by having characters stabbed in the face.
