Crimson Peak’s heart (and budget) is in its spectacle. Its weak narrative only exists to create a space for its overloaded style, which ultimately amounts to something empty. After her father’s suspiciously sudden death, a young writer (Mia Wasikowska) moves in with a dashing inventor (Tom Hiddleston) in his dilapidated estate, Crimson Peak. Wasikowska soon starts to suspect something spooky may be going on, largely because director Guillermo del Toro can’t stop himself from letting his spindly CGI ghosts out of the bag. Within three minutes of Wasikowska’s arrival, the house’s floorboards ooze blood reminiscent of Nickelodeon slime. Soon after, she spots a ghost that could be a dead ringer for Helena Bonham Carter. There is no subtlety here, only corny visual excess. Production designer Thomas E. Sanders creates a painstakingly elaborate haunted house (complete with a fully functional elevator!), but when the front doors of the mansion open to let in a gust of studio snow, the artifice becomes laughable. If the spectacle disappoints, the narrative devolves into something indescribably bad. Despite del Toro’s efforts to build suspense through fragments of hushed conversation, any suspense resolves in cliché.
That said, the comedy of Crimson Peak is kind of fun, largely due to its overqualified cast. Wasikowska is typically excellent, while Hiddleston’s characteristic warmth adds necessary pathos. But Jessica Chastain’s performance as Hiddleston’s intense, piano-playing sister steals the show (keep an ear out for her melodramatic exchange with Wasikowska about dying butterflies). The campiness Chastain brings to the role is simultaneously hilarious and magnetic, and ultimately, Crimson Peak proves campy in the same way. The ghosts may be silly, but the giggle is undeniable.