Movie Review: Crimson Peak

It’s not tough to see why some folks, critics, and audience members alike, might have felt that Crimson Peak wasn’t as effective as they were hoping it would be. As a ghost story, it is a little dry and moves kind of slowly, but there is a fair amount of substance to it. The fact that the story starts at the ending is interesting since it brings up a lot of questions that the audience wants to see answered, especially since it looks as though Edith has been through hell only to come out the other side looking worse for wear. As the story goes along however it becomes easier to see why some folks thought that Crimson Peak made promises it couldn’t quite keep since the pacing wasn’t horrible, but it was kind of awkward at times, even when relying on a jump scare or two that’s kind of standard for horror movies. The characters feel developed and the dialogue is definitely suited for the period in which they were playing, but there’s still something that feels off. 

Getting into the story though, the foreboding vision of her mother that warned Edith to be wary of Crimson Peak was kind of interesting and it kicked things off in a way that started to die down just a bit as the matter of Thomas Sharpe and his desire to raise capital for his idea was eventually brought into the mix. The fact that Edith, an up and coming author, is kind of disregarded throughout a good portion of the movie, is kind of a downer, but there is an attempt to elevate her character throughout the movie, even if her writing career isn’t considered to be a big deal at first. The romance that quickens between Edith and Thomas Sharpe is kind of an obvious lead-in to what’s going to happen, but what’s great about it is that the relationship does take a serious turn before it becomes finalized. 

Seeing how Edith’s father doesn’t approve of Sharpe, for more than his lack of vision when it comes to his invention to revolutionize clay mining around his estate, it makes the relationship feel less likely…if the movie was any longer. Predictability is a big part of this movie since, even though Edith’s father convinces Thomas, via a bribe, to break her heart before leaving America, one knows that Edith and Thomas are going to end up together. This is when trailers kind of destroy the whole mystique of a movie since there was never much doubt of what was going to happen, nor was there a lot of mystery, which could be one reason why people didn’t feel as though the movie worked. But there was also the idea that the ghosts, creepy as they are, didn’t work for everyone. Personally, the movie is kind of slow-moving and the jump scares are the equivalent of what a person might find in a high school haunted house. In other words, there was a good chance that going into this movie, without watching a trailer, one might have had high expectations. But the moment that things start unfolding and the story begins to take shape, it’s not hard to guess what’s going to happen. 

The murder of Edith’s father might have been one of the real mysteries of the movie, as would the relationship between Thomas and Lucille, but figuring out the former and being shown the latter still didn’t elevate the movie that much. The chase and fight scene between Lucille and Edith was one of the high points of the movie. The fate of the Sharpe’s is also kind of effective since many ghost stories wrap up with an ending that makes people think, and delivers a sense of irony as well. All in all, this movie is something that people might see as a classy and upscale ghost story, and others might see it as a less than effective tale that kind of stops and starts here and there throughout its length. When all is said and done though, it needs to be said that the variety of ghost stories that are out there makes it clear that not every one of them is going to satisfy the fans. 

Ghost stories are without a doubt one of the most popular types of horror stories since they’ve been around for so long. Some of them are full of jump scares and other elements that are typical for such stories, and Crimson Peak doesn’t disappoint in a few ways, but the pace at which it moves is kind of distracting. This doesn’t necessarily make it a bad movie, but it does manage to knock it down the list of favorites with many people. The story is sound enough, but the execution felt kind of choppy.