10 Horror Movies That Aren’t About What You Think

I mentioned in the introduction how marketing plays a huge role in setting audience expectations, and Crimson Peak is one of the best examples of a movie's advertising completely misrepresenting its actual content.

Guillermo del Toro's gothic romance is certainly steeped in horror - there are supernatural creatures ready to deliver jump scares and plenty of gore to go around - but it's far from a conventional horror movie.

The trailer, however, sold it as your regular multiplex fare, a horror closer to The Conjuring or Ouija.

There's nothing wrong with those kinds of movies of course, but it meant that audiences going into Crimson Peak were expecting a straightforward ghost tale, and were left with a few scares, but mainly a family melodrama and a lengthy opening that keeps the horror elements to the minimum.

As one character makes clear, this isn't a ghost story: "It's more a story with a ghost in it. The ghost is just a metaphor."