🇼Δ🇷🇷🇪🇳’s review published on Letterboxd:
"It's a world of everything dying and eating each other right beneath our feet."
When Guillermo Del Toro makes a movie, you pay attention: You strap yourself into your seat, and patiently prepare yourself for something that is guaranteed to mesmerize you, chill you, and in some cases; even fulfill you. With a resume that includes some of my favorites such as: Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy I & II, Blade II, Pacific Rim, and The Devil's Backbone, you just know you're in a special treat - especially when Del Toro is involved.
Now, after waiting what feels like a decade, I checked out his latest masterpiece: Crimson Peak. Going into the film, all I had known was what the trailers had shown, which is what caught my attention: "Oh, It's another Gothic horror from Del Toro.." I had said, but through and through, this was not the case this time around.
What we got instead was a Gothic Romance film: a ghost story, where the ghosts aren't the central theme, but the love between Sir Thomas and Edith is. When we finally get to Crimson Peak - a run-down and creepy looking mansion that I'd live in the first chance I got - things start to take a turn for the worse: first, Edith begins hearing and seeing strange noises and frightening "monsters" that she feels are coming after her, [or at least trying to tell her something] Second, all the things that go bump in the night come at her full force and Finally; Edith begins to unravel just who the Sharpes really are and where they came from - which turns out to be not very nice..
As for the cinematography, Everything feels perfectly framed and symmetrical with a ton of great tracking and effective slow moving shots. The pace of the storytelling could be considered on par with The Shining: a slow build up which ends with all hell breaking loose by the time we reach the finale.
I had a lot of fun with Crimson Peak, it kept me guessing, and after learning it won the Fright Meter Award for Best Special Effects, I'd say it's well deserved.
Don't let the trailers for this film fool you into thinking it's a full-blown horror film.. it's certainly much more than that.