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Oct 04, 2018SusyHendrix rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
A little bit of a letdown for me, not because it was bad, but because its story didn't engage me much. I found the twists predictable and the CG ghosts a bit too much to be chilling (then again, the ghosts prove to be not what they seem, so that could have been intentional; still, the CG is so plastic-y that the ghosts don't even conjure a proper uncanny effect). The heroine Edith got a bit bland once she married Sir Thomas, going from a proactive rebel to a timid mouse of a human being-- though once again, this could have been the point, given the turn the story takes, but I still wasn't very invested in her and she never regained my interest after the forty minute mark. I love all the things Guillermo del Toro is homaging-- the Hammer Horror films of the 1950s and 1960s, the Brontes, Poe, 1920s horror cinema, Hitchcockian suspense-thrillers-- but the film never rises above being a fun homage, at least to me. Still, it's a good movie, with gorgeous visuals and fine performances from the cast. I admire how it's a horror movie that doesn't rely on jump scares or crass shock-- like a lot of the horror movies I love, it relies more on dread, the unknown, and atmosphere to conjure fright. but something just didn't grab me about this movie. By the end, I just felt hollow. As it is, the movie lacks the imagination of Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, which I felt was a much more interesting fantasy-horror story with a much more engaging lead. It had style and substance; Crimson Peak only has style.