Guillermo Del Toro's Crimson Peak

That's what you get when the director is some straight fat freakazoid. He is big on atmosphere but really bad with story.

Jessica Chastain was totally miscast, too. She was game and acting well...so not her fault. Del Toro obviously wanted to fuck her because he gave her all of these beautiful gowns and beauty shots. Meanwhile, the plot only works if the sister is a homely spinster. You need Sally Hawkins or a young Imelda Staunton or Sophie Thompson.

It's a one trick script. If you give it away...there's nothing left. But, if I remember correctly, we did get a nice ass shot of googly-eyes...so there's that.

It's a camp classic! Love this film. Ridiculous in the best of ways, with a wonderful all-encompassing glam-goth atmosphere.

I did love the look of the movie... so intense and colorful.

Hiddleston was okay in his role -- sensitive and a bit weird, which works when you consider that Mia Whatever-her-name-is's character was young, sheltered, and clearly looking for something exotic, rather than her comfortable-if-gorgeous nice doctor friend from home.

But yes, there's very little logic to the plot, when you consider that Chastain's character certainly could have been serial-marrying rich old guys for their assets, and no one would have blinked an eye when they died.

I really did want to love this movie... But it's SO awful! Just a complete failure on Del Toro's part, everything he decided to do went wrong.

I find it deeply ironic that he bailed on the godawful "Hobbit" movies, and made this equally awful mess instead.

Just bought the expensive Arrow DVD of this (on sale). It's a big failure as a story (Guillermo del Toro;'s film's usaally are--he is always weak when it comes to constructing characters), but it is so visually stunning that I'm glad I bought it. The Gothic mansion is absolutely stunning--a huge Victorian pile with the roof fallen in, so leaves or snowflakes are always falling into the center. And the evocation of Gilded Age America in the first third could not be done more beautifully--it puts Scorsese's The Age of innocence to shame,. There is a spectacular shot neat the beginning of of Mia wasikowska ea;lking through the downtown of Buffalo in 1901 that is astonishing--it looks like you're really there.

R5 I agree. I give it automatic points for being so visually beautiful , so many films nowadays are either banal looking or borderline ugly. I love the visuals in all of Del Toros films.

Given the twist, I thought it would have been funny if they cast Angelina Jolie in Jessica Chastains role.

I liked the movie, it was rather campy and entertaining. Hiddleston's character was a strange/tragic romantic figure. I think period movies suits him better because his looks fit in with the 19th century clothing and darker hair.

I find Del Toro so overrated.

He’s vastly overrated. He’s really only good at atmosphere. He is not a storyteller.

His films would all be better if they were directed and designed by him but written by someone else.

"The Devil's Backbone" is a masterpiece, though.

Pan’s Labyrinth too R1

After that, all of his movies have been disappointing

I forgot Mia Wasikowska was even in it

Mia Wasikowska is quite fine in this, and so is the actor who plays her father.

Tom Hiddleston is also very well cast. His sympathetic qualities work very well here.

The casting disaster is Jessica Chastain as the sister. She should have been played by someone like the woman who played Lysa Arryn from "Game of Thrones" (she was also the mother in "The Witch").

Del Torro’s Spanish-language films are infinitely better. He literally loses the plot in English. But Crimson Peak is visually gorgeous, as are all his movies.

Benedict Cumberbatch was going to play the Hiddleston role but backed out.

Is there some streaming service where this is available to watch right now?

Not right now unless you have Cinemax.

You can rent it from Amazon for 3.99

He’s like Tim Burton for me. Everything about their choices and themes fascinate me. The likes of Pan’s Labyrinth and Edward Scissorhands should be right up my alley. But I thoroughly dislike them.

The single Del Toro movie I love is the charming Hellboy. For Burton, it’s Batman.

He probably would have been considered a hunk in Victorian times! Hell, people consider him a hunk NOW (I don't "get" him myself, but....)

Such a frustrating film, it was obviously intended to be the sort of Gothic melodrama that nobody's made for ages, and I do like a good Gothic melodrama.

But a good idea was undone by monumental levels of miscasting, especially Chastain who couldn't even do a Brit accent, but also the stark illogic of questions like "Well, where did all that money go then?". I mean, where DID it go? The perps have scored big before, and they've got nothing to show for it, they've scored enough money to have a nice lifestyle someplace warm, and that's it? THAT is all they got for their troubles?

I thought Chastain's british accent was better than most of the ones I've heard from American actors, although the bar is set pretty low there.

I hate all that crap CGI Del Toro always has in his movies. Every scene that's about to build to something scary is ruined when he unleashes one of those computer animated visions upon us. I know that there were apparently actors on set playing the ghosts, but who cares when they just go in and add so many extra layers of CGI that it looks like it was all animated from the get go?

Chastain was fine, but she never rose the occasion and gave us a truly unhinged performance. This role needed Faye Dunaway levels of scenery chewing to be effective. Chastain is a little too tasteful and reserved for such a role.

[Quote] Every scene that's about to build to something scary is ruined when he unleashes one of those computer animated visions upon us.

That's the problem i had with Mama.

Mama was even worse. What a huge waste of time.

R23 " the role needed Dunaway levels of scenery chewing". Actresses are pretty much terrified to do that nowadays, fearing it will end their careers or become a meme. The only modern actress I can recall doing a mommie dearest style performance was Keira Knightley in that Freud movie. She was roundly mocked though to be fair her career survived.

I actually preferred Mama to Crimson Peak. That ending was depressing.

Because Charlie Hunnam has no neck after his long-term steroid abuse!! That's why. But Tom Diddlestale is just bland boring too. And Jessica Chastain must be fucking dead serious in every single movie she's in. The movie is doomed from the start!!!