Crimson Peak, Guillermo del Toro's latest - and rather underrated - exercise in horror, tells the story of Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska), a woman who marries a man named Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) and subsequently moves into his large and scary gothic house with both him and his sister, a woman named Lucille (Jessica Chastain). It later turns out, however, that Thomas and Lucille are a bit mental, and that they're both responsible for the deaths of Thomas' previous wives. As in, they murdered them. The house is also haunted, of course, and there are ghosts everywhere. Interestingly, though (and here's where it gets good), Del Toro pulls a switch-a-roo on this tried and tested plot device and has it so that the ghosts aren't out to hurt Edith; they're on her side. That's a seriously neat twist when you think about it, because how many movies have there been about haunted houses filled with ghostly apparitions who are just out to hurt the protagonist? Not here: the ghosts serve a purpose, and that purpose is helping Edith to survive long enough to defeat Thomas and Lucille. Which is precisely what they do. Hooray!
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
