Guillermo del Toro has a track record of making films one would think would be easy hits at the box office, but only make a small profit compared to some of the bigger hits we’ve seen in the last decade. He’s one of the more acclaimed visual directors, yet despite making movies about giant robots, dark fantasies or superheroes, he has a hard time beating even Adam Sandler in profits.
Whether it’s due to a lack of accessibility in his work or just poor luck, the streak continues as his latest film, the gothic romance known as Crimson Peak, received decent reviews but lost the October box office to The Martian and Goosebumps. But a director’s best work doesn’t have to make the most money, so did del Toro reach his peak?
Crimson Peak’s leading lady Edith Cushing is a young author who defies her editor by choosing to write about ghost stories rather than romance novels.
She meets Sir Thomas Sharpe, who has come to the United States to find investors for his clay-mining invention. He is rejected by Edith’s father, but becomes romantically involved with the novelist. Mr. Cushing disapproves of the relationship and tries to get Sharpe and his sister, Lady Lucille, to leave. But the love of the couple doesn’t slow down after Mr. Cushing is brutally murdered.
They eventually marry and move to England to live in the Sharpe’s mansion. With ghosts appearing in the corridors and the unsettling attitude of Sharpe’s sister, Edith begins to uncover a dark truth hidden behind the walls of Crimson Peak.
One important thing to address is that this is a gothic romance film, not a horror film or a psychological thriller (even if it rarely feels like that a couple of times here). Given how the film was marketed with dark and ominous trailers, a haunted house at Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights, and getting released near Halloween, I get the feeling that I wasn’t the only viewer with different expectations going into this.
This could be due to how aware some of the marketing team was when it came to the financial success of del Toro’s movies. Either way Jack Black won the box office that weekend so it was a lose-lose scenario.
With that out of the way, del Toro does what he does best when it comes to the visual aspects. Certain production values like the gothic setting and clothing with some creepy ghost effects show that del Toro’s still has the creative, twisted charm present in his other works like Pan’s Labyrinth.
The actors do a very fine job as well. It’s hard to go wrong with some stars like Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain. Mia Wasikowska pleasantly surprised me as the film’s lead (granted that could be due to how much I didn’t like her in Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, or that film itself for that matter). They range from polite and charming to downright psychotic in how they perform.
Acting and visuals are two major components for a film’s success, but the failure comes in the plot. The film has a decent climax, but the plot overall is like a twisted episode of Scooby Doo.
The ghosts were one of the most marketable parts about the movie, yet if you removed them from the film entirely, it would hardly have an impact on the story. They feel more like a visual gimmick than contributing to engaging storytelling.
As with Pacific Rim, del Toro’s preference of style over substance damages the story’s impact. The difference is, with Pacific Rim, the giant robot fights could fill in the gaps for the straightforward plot, and the little action this movie gets is with pens and shovels.
Crimson Peak may have del Toro’s talent in directing visuals and acting, but doesn’t have a good script to go with it. It’s not to say it’s a bad story, I just feel with this much talent behind the production it just didn’t have the right plot. If you want to show off creepy, gothic ghosts for Halloween, fine. Just make sure to attach it to a movie where it actually means something.