Guillermo del Toro’s latest,
Crimson Peak, attempts to revive
the genre, but it relies too much
on over the top gore and the
sort of stalk and slash finale that
would be more at home in the
Scream franchise. The movie’s
title refers to an old English mansion, its crumbling majesty sinking into the precarious red clay
it’s built upon, and that’s ironically an all too apt metaphor for del
Toro’s film, which is sumptuous in
its visuals but housed on a paper
thin foundation.
As a child, New Yorker Edith
Cushing (groan) is visited by
the spooky spirit of her recently
deceased mother, who delivers the cryptic message, “Beware of Crimson Peak!” Later,
as a young woman, Edith (Mia
Wasikowska) falls for a visiting
charming Englishman, Thomas
Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), and
despite her father’s best efforts
to prevent their coupling, moves
to Sharpe’s ancestral home in ru-
Watch the trailer for Crimson Peak
NewJerseyStage.com
2015 - ISSUE 10
119