Crimson Peak (2015)

I mostly love Guillermo del Toro, but I think I just don’t like gothic horror very much. And this movie didn’t do much for me.

That said, del Toro absolutely crushes it with the production design. The house itself is a character - decaying, bleeding red clay through the walls, sinking into the earth. It’s gorgeous and grotesque at the same time. The creature design, which he always kills at, is incredible here too.

Visually, this is a feast. Every frame looks like a painting, and you can feel del Toro’s obsessive attention to detail in every corner of that mansion. But despite all that craft and beauty, I just didn’t connect with it emotionally. It’s a slightly creepy, very atmospheric ghost story that reminded me a lot of The Haunting of Hill House - except I like that show about 5 billion times more than this movie.

I don’t love this, and I don’t know if I’ll be revisiting it again very soon. If you’re into gothic romance and haunted house stories, you’ll probably get way more out of this than I did. For me, it was all style without enough substance to make me care.

Still respect the hell out of del Toro’s vision though. The man knows how to build a world.

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