I had a good time with this, although it was pretty predictable and the computer generated ghosts are laughable. All around the acting's good and the film is really visually stunning. The climax is also very entertaining.

Edith (Mia Wasikowska) is an aspiring novelist in early-20th-century America, the sheltered only child of a wealthy industrialist and widower (Jim Beaver). She falls under the spell of Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), a charming, but nearly destitute baronet visiting this side of the Atlantic to secure financing for a prospective mining operation on his land in North West England. After a tragedy and much to surprise of polite society, Edith and Thomas wed, and she journeys to live with him in his ancestral home. It is an opulent, but decayed manor slowly descending into the expanse of scarlet clay upon which it is constructed, and the newlyweds share it with his icily guarded sister, Lucille (Jessica Chastain), and, it turns out, a host of perturbed spirits. To survive what she discovers to be a hostile environment, a frightened, yet determined Edith must unravel the mysterious history of the Sharpe family.

Crimson Peak is a hypnotic geyser of a film: a cavernous, richly imagined Edwardian spectacle of high fashion, the grotesque, and the sensual. Highly respected genre specialist Guillermo del Toro directs it with the contagious and unbridled enthusiasm of a child unleashed in a toy store. His influences are not hard to spot—he draws from the headstrong heroines and windswept country estates of Henry James and the Brontë sisters, as well as the suspense films Gaslight and Notorious, both of which feature Ingrid Bergman as an imperiled wife in a duplicitous household—but his reverence is productive, powering a vigorous homage to an antique and profoundly romantic idea of the macabre.

As evidenced previously by, among others, Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy II: The Golden Army, del Toro is nearly as fastidious a student of the otherworldly as Wes Anderson is of mordant whimsy, and his perfectly ghastly vision informs even the briefest scenes here (an early moment of character development, for example, involves spirit photography). Every detail—every candlelit hallway, every craning camera movement, every skeletal and viscid phantom—is thoughtful and just so, the result of a cinematic wizardry born of a nerdy and undying devotion to haunted-house theatricality.

And in a pleasant surprise, the content and the cast are not outshone by the lush form. The contorting plot of inheritance and insanity is perfectly structured, each deviant development and spectral jolt timed with an almost mathematical precision, and it functions both as a fanciful ghost yarn and a debauched, mournful love story. The one aim never overshadows the other. And the gifted central performers—the wide-eyed and ethereal Wasikowska, the dastardly and debonair Hiddleston, the severe Chastain—are invited to create characters writ large, dialing every attribute and response slightly higher than they otherwise might so as to fall in line with the operatic scope and fevered timbre of the production. However, they never go so far as to lapse into camp and dilute the resonance of the characters and the webs they spin around one another.

A

What do you think about the formulaic and predictable claims people are making, David?

It is formulaic, but in a positive way. It is shot through with and defined by Jane Eyre, The Turn of the Screw, the Bluebeard legend, Alfred Hitchcock films (Rebecca; Notorious), etc. It is a sumptuous staging of classic Gothic themes and story elements.

This is not a film to see for edgy originality.

It's a disappointment for del Toro, that's what it is.

I absolutely loved this movie. First off, you can't fault any aspect of it on a visual level. Everything from the production and costume design to the cinematography is gorgeous. I also found the narrative completely enthralling, and while I can understand why people will not be pleased this isn't a typical ghost story I loved that about this film. Jessica Chastain walks away with the movie performance-wise, in my opinion. She gives the character a lot of depth and nuance, and the awesome, nailbiting finale is mostly entertaining because of her character. That's not to say Mia Wasikowska and Tom Hiddleston are not good - I thought both were perfect fits for their roles and gave them their all. This is a really great movie for the Halloween season and I'd highly recommend it. A

I don't care much for del Toro's works but im looking forward to this.

Crimson Peak sums itself up nicely in a line that Mia Wasikowska speaks early on: it's not a ghost story; it's a story that happens to have ghosts in it. While audiences who go in expecting straight horror stand to be disappointed with what Guillermo Del Toro has delivered, I was quite thoroughly absorbed in it. It's a visually sumptuous film that does a terrific job of building an unmistakable sense of eerie atmosphere and dread, and it does so with only a few well-timed jump scares and hardly any gore until the blood-soaked third act. Major kudos are due to the craft departments that were involved with the film, especially the production design; the titular mansion is so intricately detailed that it almost feels like a character in and of itself, and it makes for beautiful shot compositions throughout the film. Admittedly, the screenplay weakens a bit in the third act, when the film dispenses with psychological horror and essentially becomes a straightforward slasher flick, but it's a refreshingly off-kilter genre mashup that works. Everyone in the cast has the wit and composure to play up the conventions that one would expect in a period drama (in particular, one that takes particular cues from Victorian literature), but Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain are also sufficiently mysterious and menacing when they tackle the film's horror tropes. It's not Del Toro's most impressive work, but it's an admirably bold hybrid that deserves more love than it is likely to get from an audience that will probably expect something more conventionally horrific.

B+

I thoroughly enjoyed this. Very beautiful and eerie.

A-

I badly wanted to like this, because I love Edgar Allan Poe-like gothic horror-romance stories. This tries to be like that, but the spooky atmosphere and amazing set and costume design are not enough. The atmosphere is not sustained successfully due to some unintentionally funny and campy moments, and the fact that the ghosts do not serve any real purpose and they don't connect us emotionally to the mystery and horror. Maybe it's their design, which is unfortunately laughable. I wasn't looking for a ghost story and I understand what Del Toro wanted to create here, but the ghosts needed more in the way of significance. The romance is also underdeveloped and holds little to no weight, as is the protagonist and her portrayal by Mia Wasikowska. Though I enjoyed some aspects of the film, it was not enough to keep me invested in the story, and by the finale, I was rolling my eyes. I guess I'll have to get my gothic horror fix elsewhere. C/C+

I enjoyed this quite a bit but I think it would have worked better if the ghost element was eliminated. It was incredibly stupid and the CGI ghosts looked terrible. That being said, it was a gorgeous looking film and besides the ghosts, the only other downside was Mia, who was simply horrendous and incredibly miscast. Jessica Chastain was FANTASTIC here though and makes the movie in it's final half hour.

B

I saw this again today. I wanted to catch it once more before it leaves on Thursday. Such a creepy, gorgeous, sexy movie.

I really wanted to like this movie more, but maybe Gothic Romance just isn't for me. The perfromances are fine and it has a solid finale, but everything else is was meh. As a period horror film it never worked as the ghosts are goofy as shit and it doesn't really try to have any kind of atmosphere eventhough the location is great and the production/art design is fantastic. Just another disappointing effort from GDT IMO.

This pretty much sums it up...

This is such a beautiful, creepily erotic and visually stunning piece of gothic horror/romance that I absolutely loved. the ghosts are only secondary here and its not a jump in your seat horror flick (which are a dime a dozen and usually rubbish).

Impressed by all the cast here and would love if more of these types of gothic horror films were made.

Grade : A

A very impressive return to form for Mr. Del Toro. The film is remarkably well made and well acted. This movie should and probably will be shown as an example of excellence in Art Direction. And while I was initially disappointed at Emma Stone not getting the role, I think Mia handled much better than she would. Emma Stone has an inherent sassiness that would have changed the tone of the movie for the worse. And is it weird that I was much much more attracted to Jessica when she became an incestous Harley Quinn? Ghosts aint got nothing on her.

I do wish there had been a little pay off for all the supernatural elements. I know it flat out says the ghosts are not real at the beginning of the story, but they still played a huge part in the story. It reminded me of 1Q84, when one of the characters says "if a story is good then why does it need an ending?" It's all well and good that you feel that way, but don't act surprised when the audience rejects it.

The opening voice-over says ghosts are real. "Ghosts are real. This much I know. I've seen them."

Yeah but when she's explaining her story she says that "the ghosts are just a metaphor for the past."

I believe the metaphor line is just her trying to downplay the supernatural elements of her novel. She wants to seem very serious to the publisher.

Overall, I do not believe del Toro intends for the ghosts to be interpreted as dreams or hallucinations. The story contains real ghosts.

Maybe. Chastain does see the ghost of her brother at the end, which I believe is the only time someone other than Mia sees one. I just can't help but feel the scene of her explaining her novel is a direct dramatization of Del Toro pitching this movie to the studios.

I think it is very very clear: there are ghosts in this film.

I enjoyed Crimson Peaks. Usually, I'm all about movies having a great story, but that was not true of this one, which just had an adequate and unsurprising story. The beauty of Crimson Peaks is it's beauty. It is a lush gothic suspense movie just like they used to make back in the 60's. The settings and costumes are fantastic. The color and cinematography is spot on. I felt like I was in another world for two hours. I believe it's biggest weakness is the doctor character. Since, it's barely a horror movie, the gothic romance really turns out to be the essential element of Crimson Peaks. However, the script didn't make the doctor a particularly compelling character, nor did Mia Wasikowska's character show the least bit of romantic interest in him. The story would have been much stronger if Wasikowska had been torn between two lovers. *A-*

About an hour into this, and it's pretty dull and disappointing so far.