Guillermo Del Toro to direct "Crimson Peak" (or not, you never know...)

[CB Fan]

I saw it Sunday, it was okay I was a bit mad at the wasted potential but overall it was just alright. I thought Hiddleston was a bit bland and Hunnam was just barely tolerable but the ladies (wasikowska and chastain) held their own well.

 

[Rowsdower!]

Tell that to David Lynch.


Honestly though there are many directors that have done similar things and then were never forthcoming in their meanings.

There's a reason why Kubrick's films inspire so many conspiracy theories. The layers are there and you can be sure he meant something but he avoided explaining himself.

GDT is working with a very particular cinematic language. The problem is the type of movie hes using it on though.

Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, when you watch a Kubrick or Lynch film and you don't grasp everything that the film is trying to do, there's a good chance that you'll look into it a bit more and theorize things. I could see people perhaps looking for some deeper meaning in Crimson Peak... maybe... but Pacific Rim? Give me a break. Like you said, Del Toro is picking the wrong types of projects if he wants to deliver complex films. Or else he's just not talented enough to get that type of complexity across in his movies.

 

[Lord]

Saw this film and I liked it for what it was. None of us never really knew this was going to be a gothic romance until Del Toro was tweeting about it the week before the film came out. This isn't a great film, but once you get past what the movie actually is, it's by no means bad. It had atmosphere, solid performances, and when there was creepiness, it was damn creepy and had me holding my breath. Though saying through dialogue that it isn't a ghost story and the ghosts are a metaphor doesn't save it from being something else people thought it was going to be.

It's troubling because marketing can go either way. Usually it takes advantage of its selling points and others it makes the films look different and manipulates expectations. But I think what it comes down to despite that is if the film by itself is good. This is a good movie. It's just a different good movie.

And I agree with Black Narcissus. I'd also give it a solid 7 but how many people actually saw this movie here?

He's been saying for weeks how much he was inspired by gothic romances, the trailers reinforced that with the look.

 

[Doctor Jones]

He's been saying for weeks how much he was inspired by gothic romances, the trailers reinforced that with the look.

Sure, but when this movie was announced we all thought it was going to be a straight up horror film.

 

[Black Narcissus]

He did a QnA with Tarantino. How the hell is this isn't up yet?

Nolan and Quentin loved it tho.

 

[Serpico Jones]

He did a QnA with Tarantino. How the hell is this isn't up yet?

Nolan and Quentin loved it tho.

Tarantino loves a lot of bad movies.

 

[Black Narcissus]

Tarantino loves a lot of bad movies.

Eh, this wasn't a bad movie tho. Not to me.

 

[Lord]

With Del Toro's past films i never expected this to be straight up horror, he never went against the notion of wanting to just make a gothic romance with elements of horror.

And nope, this was not a bad movie, far from it, while i think there were many things to pick apart and complain about, i feel like some of the most negative reviewers picked the wrong parts to complain, like the fact that the ghosts can't properly explain what's going on in Crimson Peak, it's not just Del Toro who explains that in interviews, the film itself says they're reflections of past people, little bits of them, not the full person in astral form.

 

[Serpico Jones]

Eh, this wasn't a bad movie tho. Not to me.

I haven't seen it yet, I was just talking about Tarantino in general.

 

[redhawk23]

Pretty much all directors take some form of influence from films that came before them. At times directors will pretty much outright quote elements or scenes or camera moves, borrowing them or re-contextualizing them. Tarantino is well known for this of course, infamous even, though other directors like Wes Anderson do it just as much.

It can be fun to recognize retro-actively what is influencing other movie's you've seen. Last night I had such as an experience involving Crimson Peak.

The St. Louis International Film Festival had a screening of a Hitchcock film called "Notorious." Guillermo del Toro has name-dropped Hitchcock several times while discussing Crimson Peak but always in reference to his film "Rebecca." I've never seen Rebecca so I can't say what influence it may have had but I am near certain that GDT had "Notorious" on the mind when making Crimson Peak.

At first Notorious and Crimson Peak would seem to have pretty much nothing in common. Notorious is the story of a German woman, the daughter of a Nazi scientist recruited by the US government to spy on escaped Germans in Brazil following WW2. In integrating herself in the life of her mark, she ends up marrying one of the German scientists.

The scientist lives in a large mansion and when the woman is shown around there are several locked doors that she is not allowed into. What first began to tip me off was that she then steals her husbands key from his key ring. The husband then notices and conspicuously leaves his key ring sitting out and then leaves the room. While he's asleep the woman puts the key back and then he knows she had it. This plays out exactly the same as in Crimson Peak. Its a common enough trope so I disregarded it.

Then the connections became more obvious. Once clear that his new wife is a spy, the scientist and his mother conspire how to handle her. His mother begins to poison the woman's drinks, served in tea cups. The woman's symptoms when poisoned are exactly the same. In Crimson Peak Edith can be seen drinking the tea sitting in a large wing-backed chair. The chair fits in the butterfly imagery of the rest of the film. The thing is, Notorious has its protagonist in almost the exact same wing-backed chair, drinking the poison.

Just as in Crimson Peak in which Charlie Hunnam comes to take Edith away, in Notorious the woman's government handler and true love interest comes to take her away. Just as the Sharpe siblings confront Edith and Hunnam, the characters in Notorious have a confrontation with the scientist and his mother in the large lobby of their mansion. It is all framed and shot in a very particular way.

At this point Del Toro chooses to mix up and subvert the whole thing by having Edith's would be savior nearly stabbed to death and having Edith resolve things herself.

None of this is meant as a criticism but it was very surprising to see how an entire section of one move was re-purposed here even as Del Toro name dropps a completely different film from the same director.

 

[Drz]

Went to see this with the expectations this was a vampire movie lol, I really loved the visuals, clothing, atmosphere and overall the look of it.

 

[Drz]

[YT]6hbJjREwlyc[/YT]

 

[chamber-music]

I was looking forward to this film. In the end it turned out to be nothing more than ok for me. Not great but not terrible.

Visually the film looked great. The twists and plot were extremely predictable. Chastain was good. The film isn't scary and there was a surprising lack of atmosphere.

I gave the movie 7/10.

 

[Octoberist]

I think the scare factor isn't the problem but GDT's reliance on overly familiar troupes, and not giving them enough of a twist to hide the familiarity.

 

[Marvolo]

TECHNICAL INFORMATION BLU-RAY™:

Street Date: February 9, 2016

Copyright: 2016 Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

Selection Number: 61163118 (US) / 61163115 (CDN)

Layers: BD-50

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Rating: R for bloody violence, some sexual content and brief strong language

Languages/Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish and French Subtitles

Sound: English 7.1 DTS:X Immersive Audio, 2.0 DTS Headphone:X, 2.0 Dolby Digital, French and Spanish DTS Digital Surround 5.1

Run Time: 1 hour, 59 minutes

TECHNICAL INFORMATION DVD

Street Date: February 9, 2016

Copyright: 2016 Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

Selection Number: 61163120 (US) / 61163114 (CDN)

Layers: BD-50

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Rating: R for bloody violence, some sexual content and brief strong language

Languages/Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish and French Subtitles

Sound: English Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0, French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1

Run Time: 1 hour, 59 minutes

Special Features Details:

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment and Legendary Entertainment have announced the Blu-ray Combo Pack (Blu-ray/DVD/Digital HD) and DVD releases of Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak.

The Blu-ray Combo Pack will include:

• Feature Commentary with co-writer and Director Guillermo Del Toro

• Deleted Scenes

• The Light and Dark of Crimson Peak – Crimson Peak offers a stylized turn of the century with carefully crafted visuals that provide the perfect backdrop for Del Toro’s brand of psychological horror. Follow the phases of production to discover a booming America and a dark and removed England portrayed with a multi-layered sophistication unlike any seen in recent cinema.

• Beware Of Crimson Peak – Tom Hiddleston (Sir Thomas Sharpe) offers a walking tour of the many secret spaces in Allerdale Hall.

• I Remember Crimson Peak – A series of interviews with director Guillermo del Toro and his standout cast, Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain.

• A Living Thing –An army of artisans was amassed to construct the Sharpe mansion on North America’s largest soundstage. Witness first-hand and in great detail the construction of Del Toro’s most elaborate set to date.

• A Primer on Gothic Romance – Employing his encyclopedic knowledge and passion for the genre, Guillermo del Toro traces the lineage of Gothic Romance in cinema. Using Crimson Peak as the basis, Del Toro outlines the history of cinematic terror and illuminates the differences between traditional scares and elevated horror.

• Crimson Phantoms – Del Toro’s approach to make-up effects is discussed by award-winning effects house DDT. In this piece, they offer an exclusive look inside their workshop, where they deconstruct the creation of the film’s most disturbing prosthetic effects. The discussion delves into the mythology of these elegant creatures and how Del Toro’s belief in the supernatural informed the design and narrative of the ghosts.

• Hand Tailored Gothic – Costume designer Kate Hawley unravels her collaboration with Del Toro and reveals the symbolism constantly at play in the wardrobe’s design.

The DVD will include:

• Feature Commentary with co-writer and Director Guillermo Del Toro

• Deleted Scenes

• The Light and Dark of Crimson Peak – Crimson Peak offers a stylized turn of the century with carefully crafted visuals that provide the perfect backdrop for Del Toro’s brand of psychological horror. Follow the phases of production to discover a booming America and a dark and removed England portrayed with a multi-layered sophistication unlike any seen in recent cinema.

• Beware Of Crimson Peak – Tom Hiddleston (Sir Thomas Sharpe) offers a walking tour of the many secret spaces in Allerdale Hall.

http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/crimson-peak.html

 

[redhawk23]

I'm really wanting to hear the commentary to hear GDT's reasons for certain choices. Re-using Santi's design still strikes me as a ridiculous move.

 

[Marvolo]

Not really. I doubt many of the viewers outside of mexico know who Santi is or recognized his design. I'm a GDT fan but still haven't seen all his film's so I also don't even know who Santi is.

And a good design is a good design. GDT is allowed to use his designs in more than one of his films.

On another note, did y'all know that the ghosts were played by real actors in makeup and prosthetics? Then they were enhanced with cgi.

 

[redhawk23]

Santi is the ghost from The Devil's Backbone.

His design came about from weeks of back and forth design work. His color scheme of whites and rust colors were carefully chosen to match the production design of the sets so that he could blend in and reflect the walls of the orphanage. His broken porcelain doll face invoking the innocence of the child victim. The floating plume of blood his because the boys body is dumped in a pool of water.


Del Toro has spoken about this at length. Santi is the central figure of one of GDT's best films and is rooted in that films themes, characterization and aesthetic.

This film applies all that design work to a completely different character. The character in this Crimson Peak is an incestuous participant in murder, not an innocent child. He is stabbed in the face in an attic, not dumped in a pool and yet his ghost also has the same floating pool of blood. A good design is not a good design if it doesn't serve the film its in. Imagine if he just plopped the Pale Man into another film but as a lovable sidkick character or something.


As you said though, many people in the states haven't seen The Devil's Backbone. There lies the biggest problem with this film. It re-hashes so many of the earlier films themes but does so by just stating them outright. Things like "the ghosts are metaphors for the past" or "its a story with ghosts in it, not a ghost story" are the kind of thing GDT talks about in interviews and special features. In this film they are just clunky dialogue. Crimson Peak comes off almost as if GDT doesn't trust an English speaking audience to follow his metaphors.

 

[Matt Mortem]

As you said though, many people in the states haven't seen The Devil's Backbone. There lies the biggest problem with this film. It re-hashes so many of the earlier films themes but does so by just stating them outright. Things like "the ghosts are metaphors for the past" or "its a story with ghosts in it, not a ghost story" are the kind of thing GDT talks about in interviews and special features. In this film they are just clunky dialogue. Crimson Peak comes off almost as if GDT doesn't trust an English speaking audience to follow his metaphors.

As much as I love GDT he does this entirely too often. The vampires in Blade II and the vampires in The Strain are essentially the same.

 

[redhawk23]

Do practical effects really matter if the end results end up with the same problems and criticisms of fully digital characters? I guess it helps with performances, people having something to react to, but their presence is fairly minimal any ways.

 

[Matt Mortem]

You raise a good point. If you have a practical effect on set for the actors to react to you might get a rad performance, but if an audience doesn't get wowed by or buy into a practical effect that's been glossed over with CG then the whole thing falls apart.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Saw this earlier as a blind buy on BD, it's good but not GDT's best, but predictable at points and not scary unfortunately. Good movie though, 7.5/10.

 

[Matt Mortem]

I think the movie looks better on blu ray than it did in theaters.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

GDT's movies always look gorgeous anyway.

Wasikowska and Chastain were brilliant in this though, they were the best special effects really.

 

[gwynplaine]

GDT's movies always look gorgeous anyway.

Wasikowska and Chastain were brilliant in this though, they were the best special effects really.

Especially Chastain. I really enjoyed this film, one of Del Toro's best and most personal imo. I thought of GDT pitching a film to potential investors during that scene where Hiddleston is trying to raise money for his clay mine lol.