I don’t know when this cruel trend of Hollywood deciding to place the genuinely good horror movies in every other month except October started, although I’d venture it goes back to 2005 when the Michael Keaton ghost-flick White Noise managed to be successful in it’s dead-on-arrival release date of the first week in January, but boy do I hate it. What a middle finger it was to go watch Annabelle and fucking Oujia last October while great films like The Babadook or the goofy Housebound were subjected to VOD and Netflix territory. And while 2013 had some pretty good Hollywood-heavy horror films with The Conjuring and the Evil Dead remake, neither of those were released even remotely close to October. I just don’t understand, this is the month where we’re supposed to be enjoying horror movies! Well now I can put a sock in my own mouth because I just got back from Crimson Peak, a movie 100% worthy of the October moniker. If you want to have double feature this month at the movie theaters, I absolutely recommend both this and The Visit (despite being completely different movies), that’s the review in a nutshell: This is a fun Gothic horror movie that’s light on genuine scares but seeping in red (which takes on many meanings) misery.

So I must confess to the shock of no one, I was rather biased walking into the movie. I am a big raging Tom Hiddleston fan, so much so that I even wore my Loki shirt to show my love; thus it would have had to have been a pretty awful movie for me not to at least be kind to it. I am happy to say that isn’t the case here but it did leave me wondering: as some of us might be aware, the production of Crimson Peak was met with a lot of casting switch-a-roos where Emma Stone and Benedict Cumberbatch were originally supposed to play the leads eventually leaving and being replaced with Mia Wasikowska and Hiddleston respectively. I thought to myself while watching the film how it would have played out had the original actors stuck around for the film. On the one hand, as much as I’d love to see Emma Stone in a horror movie, I think Mia Wasikowska looked more the part, particularly with it’s late 19th century Gothic setting; a feat that we’ve already seen her accomplish with Alice in Wonderland and Jane Eyre. As far as Benedict Cumberbatch goes, I think his portrayal of the Thomas Sharpe character would have been more calculating and border-line menacing, whether or not he intended to do so. While I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Cumberbatch in all that I’ve seen him in, he asserts this sort of authority that would never make me think of him as sweet. He’s more of a Henry Higgins or a Heathcliffe than a Mr. Darcy. I do genuinely wonder how much was reworked when Hiddleston was cast, because the movie almost seems to be catered to those fangirls (me, this movie was made for me) who are looking for a modern sexy Darcy equivalent. By that I mean Tom Hiddleston’s Thomas Sharpe is both passionate and cold, he harbors dark secrets, but he’s not incapable of love and compassion. In another universe would I be saying the same thing about Cumberbatch? We’ll never know.

Anyway, the plot of the movie revolves around the new marriage of young writer Edith to Thomas Sharpe, heir to the Allerdale Hall, a massive house that literally has walls that run red. I quite liked the use of color in the film, aside from the elaborate costumes, the film’s motif of red; the clay that sinks the house (thus giving it the title Crimson Peak), the water running red in the bathtub, the blood that Edith coughs up throughout the film, and the visceral blood that paints the ghosts that haunt the house, all indicate a sense of fear, gore, love, passion, and desperation. It’s interesting how like Thomas Sharpe, the house isn’t characterized as much as it should be. We see the rooms that we need to see so the plot can move forward, but there isn’t a sense of the entire house, which is so massive it has an elevator that runs through it. There are no still moments in the movie, which never allows for the house or characters to revel in the atmosphere ala 2012’s The Woman in Black. That makes the mystery that’s unfolding not unpredictable, where the few twists that the film has don’t come so gradually to the audience even though it takes Edith a bit too long to put everything together. She’s a little too trusting and naive for being claimed to be a “Jane Austen” type.

Jessica Chastain’s Lucielle would fit right in with Disney’s Haunted Mansion, even if she’s too mature for Disney audiences. She really comes alive in the movie as it goes on, becoming more manic and hostile until that aggression reaches its zenith in the film’s climax (and oh what a climax). I really want to talk more about her and her relationship with the other characters in the movie but I can’t do that without getting into spoilers*. I will say that I appreciated the subtle knife scars her character has, one that I believe goes unexplained, adding another sense of dread and mystery to her character. All I can say is she is frigid and frightening at the same time and completely embraces her role.

Also Charlie Hunnam is in this movie. He was in Pacific Rim. So there you go.

Regardless, what the film lacks in plot it makes up for it in the design of the ghosts and the visual gore effects. This film deserves its R-rating to a point that surprised me, I was not expecting it to be as unflinchingly violent as it is (and that’s great!). The look of the ghosts is also rather fascinating especially one that we see at the end who has a completely different design than everyone else. If anything this film is more akin to the Haunted Mansion than that crappy Eddie Murphy movie that came out several years ago. The film itself turns out to be more of a Gothic romance than a Gothic horror but it still carries this heavy sense of dread throughout the entire movie, the kind of thrill you want to see this time of the year. Again I think because this movie hits so many sweet spots for me, tone, setting, romance, gore, super British Tom Hiddleston, spooky ghosts, I don’t want to oversell it because it might not be your cup of tea. For me, I loved the ever loving hell out of Crimson Peak, and I will definitely be watching it again. Also shame on me, I should probably watch Pan’s Labyrinth and the Hellboy movies because I loved this movie so much shouldn’t I**?

*So I will ask, what are your thoughts on female characters in period settings as protagonists/antagonists? Do you look at it through a modernist viewpoint or with a mind of historical context? Yes these questions make more sense if you’ve seen the movie, because I do think Edith’s character falls into some damsel trappings that make her character too foolish in places but also optimistic. She is a good person who wants to love and be loved but she’s also too naive at times. I do blame this on the movie’s constant inertia to get through the plot.

**But I have seen Mimic! Guys? Hello?