Crimson Peak: 10 Things To Look Forward To

With del Toro’s heavier works, a happy ending is always unlikely to be on the books and Crimson Peak seems to be heading its main characters on the same train to Miseryville.

Which is not to say that such misery does not come with its own multi-layered charm, given that the director is a master of the art of showing us one thing but meaning another.

The most masterful example was, perhaps, Pan’s Labyrinth, which can be read as a straightforward fairy-tale or else understood for the denunciation of the atrocities of war (with particular reference to the Spanish Civil War) that it is meant to be.

Likewise, The Devil’s Backbone is an allegory against greed, while Mimic – his mutant roach fest that was given a more appropriately miserable ending in 2011 – was said to echo the plight of New York’s homeless, the so-called ‘tunnel people’.

Given the complex theme behind Crimson Peak and del Toro’s admission that he finds Dawn Of The Dead to be a stronger expression of what’s wrong with America, than JFK, critics are already questioning which theme the socially-minded director will have picked for his latest movie.

It’s a safe bet that family dynamics and the tensions they give rise to will feature somewhere in the equation.