Crimson Peak

“Crimson Peak” opens with the bloody image of a young woman Edith (Mia Wasikowska) and narration stating, “Ghosts are real,” she then flashes back to her youth as she attends the funeral of her mother and how her mother’s ghost was the first ghost she ever saw. It carried a warning for her, “Beware of Crimson Peak!”

We now see Edith as a young adult and aspiring writer, who has been criticized because her writing lacks a love story. Edith despises that cliché, until a mysterious stranger and his sister arrive in town. Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) and Lucille Sharpe (Jessica Chastain) arrive in town seeking funding for an engineering idea for Edith’s father, among other investors, only to be denied and rejected. Edith is attracted to Thomas, but her father forbids Thomas from pursuing a relationship and even goes as far as to pay him off. Thomas and his sister accept the money and plan a return to their home, but Edith’s father is soon murdered, leaving Edith to marry Thomas, and there the story truly begins.

I went to see this film because of the horror visionary Director Guillermo del Toro (“Pan’s Labyrinth” and “The Orphanage”) and the acting of Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain. I was underwhelmed by all three—and Mia Wasikowska. The story was complete, a beginning middle, end and a little back story. It is beautifully filmed, and the cinematography is notably precise. However, the trailer led me to believe that this film was to be a scary horror movie, and it wasn’t at all. To quote the film, “It’s a story with some ghost in it.” There is a predictable twist, which brought an anticlimactic climax.

As for objectionable content, there is a minimal amount of foul language. However, there are a couple of scary images and heavy violent and bloody scenes. There are two sexual scenes, but not too graphic.

As for a biblical perspective, the film often depicts a ghost as spirit of a person who has died and their spirit lingers on Earth bound by emotion. This popular idea is not biblical.

“It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).

The film has great cinematography, but the story is a bit dull, as well as dark and perverse (incest, lustful, violent murder, and occultic), with nothing to recommmend it to followers of Christ. Also, if you are looking for a great scary movie, this is not that.

Violence: Heavy to extreme / Profanity: f-word (1), s-word (1) / Sex/Nudity: Heavy—cleavage, passionate clothed kissing, man and woman in bed with man kissing down her clothed body and exposing her legs and kissing up to her thigh, woman in bathtub—bare back, drawing of a couple in a sexual position, R-rated sexual intercourse with movement and view of naked male buttocks, later a woman puts her hand down a man’s pants while cuddling

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