The movie opens with a flash-forward (a crimson peek, if you will) to Edith (Mia Wasikowska), bloody and stumbling through a snowy white landscape, as she delivers florid narration reminiscent of the famous opening lines to Rebecca<\/em>. While Rebecca <\/em>only hints at the supernatural, though, Crimson Peak<\/em> embraces it from the start. \u201cGhosts are real,\u201d Edith says. \u201cThis much I know.\u201d She recounts the story of her childhood encounter with the ghost of her mother, who died when Edith was 10 years old. It\u2019s not a comforting experience, and Edith\u2019s mother doesn\u2019t express love or longing. She issues a warning, one that young Edith doesn\u2019t understand at the time: \u201cBeware of Crimson Peak.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ghosts in Crimson Peak<\/em> are terrifying but also helpful, crying out not in malice but in anguish. It takes a while before Edith learns this truth, and after the opening scenes, Crimson Peak<\/em> slows down a bit, findingcutting to adult Edith 14 years after her mother\u2019s death, living in Buffalo, New York, with her businessman father Carter Cushing (Jim Beaver). Given del Toro\u2019s well-documented cinephilia, it\u2019s unlikely that Edith\u2019s family name is a coincidence, and her world is shaken by the presence of the suave and somewhat mysterious English baronet Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), the kind of character that Peter Cushing might have played in a 1960s Hammer production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Del Toro takes his time building the romance between Edith and Thomas, and for a long stretch of the movie there\u2019s no horror at all, even though every scene is filled with tension and uneasiness. Thomas is sophisticated and debonair, but there\u2019s also clearly something not quite right about him, which Edith\u2019s father senses immediately. Edith, however, falls under his spell, and he\u2019s the kind of character that she\u2019s been writing about in the stories she\u2019s attempting to sell to publishers. \u201cIt\u2019s more a story with a ghost in it,\u201d she tells an editor who describes her manuscript as as a ghost story, and when another character refers to her as \u201cour very own Jane Austen,\u201d Edith responds that she\u2019d rather be compared to Mary Shelley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once Thomas whisks Edith away to Allerdale Hall, his majestically crumbling estate in England, Crimson Peak<\/em>, too, becomes a story with a ghost in it\u2014multiple ghosts, really. Thomas and his sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain) are in Buffalo trying to drum up investments for the mining of red clay on the Sharpe family land, and while Carter is unimpressed with Thomas\u2019 business proposal, Edith is much more amenable to his marriage proposal, especially after her father dies in a sudden \u201caccident.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The wait for the movie to get to Allerdale is more than worth it, and del Toro combines elaborate set design with CGI augmentations for a labyrinthine mansion that rivals The Shining<\/em>\u2019s Overlook Hotel. It\u2019s gorgeously decrepit, with a perfectly placed opening in the ceiling to allow snow to fall artfully, and blood-red clay \u201cbleeding\u201d through every crevice in the floors and walls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In grand Gothic fashion, Allerdale contains secrets behind every door, and of course Lucille carries a giant key ring that allows her access to every room in the house, which she keeps from Edith. If Thomas uses his charm and good looks to cover for his dark intentions, Lucille doesn\u2019t even bother. She\u2019s introduced playing piano at a society reception in Buffalo, and even the way she performs a piece of music is somehow sinister. Chastain is delightfully cruel as Lucille, who bears such a look of disgust on her face when Edith kisses her on the cheek that you\u2019d think she was just licked by a rat. She\u2019s Rebecca<\/em>\u2019s title character and Mrs. Danvers combined into one, yet even more contemptuous and condescending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it\u2019s the perpetually underrated Wasikowska who holds Crimson Peak<\/em> together, as a smart, capable woman who\u2019s never a damsel in distress, even when she\u2019s completely under Thomas\u2019 spell. The more she learns about the horrors of Allerdale, aided by the ghosts who reside there, the more proactive she becomes, investigating the Sharpes\u2019 past and opening those forbidden doors. The vintage book cover that shows up during the closing credits, which reads \u201cCrimson Peak<\/em> by Edith M. Cushing,\u201d marks her final triumph\u2014and could easily take its place on a shelf alongside both Jane Austen and Mary Shelley. “Crimson Peak” is now streaming on Netflix<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/crimson2-scaled-1024x579.jpg\")
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