I would have thought it highly unlikely that I could be bored to death in a Guillermo del Toro film that starred Charlie Hunnam, Tom Hiddleston, and Jim Beaver, but then I saw Crimson Peak.
I would warn you that there are some spoilers ahead, but this was one of the most predictable films I've seen in a long time, so do spoilers really matter?
The film opens with a shot from the end of the film and the main character's voice-over narration takes us from that shot into the first "real" scene of the movie. Lazy screenwriting. "But, Brad! Great films like Sunset Blvd open with the end of the film!" Yes, but Sunset Blvd opens by showing you that the main character (who is also the narrator!) is dead! It opens with a twist. It shows you something jolting, a mystery, a tragedy that is slowly revealed over the course of the film (so masterfully so that you almost forget that William Holden has to die at the end). Crimson Peak just shows us a shot of the main character in the snow with blood on her face. There's no context. There's little-to-no intrigue. It's a cheap flash-forward attempt to try to hook you, but there's no bait (or hook for that matter). It's like the writer lacked confidence in what was really the first scene. NO! That's not how movies work. If you don't think your first scene is good enough to hook your audience, re-write that shit.
Second: Narration. "But Sunset Blvd had narration." And so do a lot of great movies. You know what their narrators do? Add something to the plot. The gist of her narration is "Ghosts are real. My mom died." 1) No shit. I saw a funeral scene with young you with your father. I know how movies work. I understand context clues. Film is a visual medium; I don't need you to tell me these things. Images are more powerful than your stupid words anyway. First rule of screenwriting: Show, don't tell. 2) It doesn't even matter if ghosts are real or not. In the end, they don't physically affect anything anyway. They could all be in [whatever the protagonist's name was]'s head and it wouldn't change a thing. She could be following her schizophrenic hallucinations to find clues and piece together the "mysteries" of Crimson Peak, and it wouldn't change a thing. The only other character who ever sees a ghost is Tom Hiddleston's character's sister, and she's very well established as clinically insane. So, again, it doesn't matter. Also, there's this scene where Charlie Hunnam talks about ghost photography, and that never comes up again. Never. When it comes up, you feel like there was a scene that contextualized it that got cut out, but it never comes up again later, so now I really don't understand why the scene is in the final cut of the film at all.
Let's all remember that movies like Sunset Blvd are the exception. Flash-forwards and narration do not a great movie make, and I'm so freaking tired of focus groups and studio execs shoving that shite down our throats as if we're all too stupid to understand what's going on with out help from a friendly narrator. Can you imagine how stupid some movies would be if they tried those cheap tricks? Picture Up opening with a shot of the house burning, then cross-fading into that brilliant love-story opening while Carl narrates, "This is crazy. I finally meet my childhood hero and he's trying to kill us." It's cheap.
So now you've shown me the main character alive and well later in the film. That's such a mistake. I know that movies technically already lack tension because, if we're following Hollywood rules, the protagonist can't die (and stay dead, at least until the end). But now I know she can't die until we've reached the point we saw at the start. There's no tension. I know she gets out of everything okay. She's even narrating the thing, and, unless you're Sunset Blvd, you can't have a dead narrator. And Crimson Peak has the balls (or complete lack of respect for it's audience) to throw some fabricated "tension" at us barely five shots later! The protagonist's mother appears as a ghost within the first few minutes. Great. Fine. Whatever. But del Toro tries to make the apparition's appearance suspenseful and tense, as if there's a real danger to the young hero. THERE CLEARLY F@#KING ISN'T! You just showed me her as an adult. She's narrating the damn picture.
First Act crime number 4: The protagonist is writing a book. A story with a ghost. She takes it to a publisher who says, "A ghost story?" She replies, "It's more a story with a ghost. The ghost is really a metaphor for the past." (See! Even the movie admits that "Ghosts are real" DOESN'T MATTER.) He tells her it needs a love story. Great! Within the first five minutes we know that this movie isn't really about the ghosts, and it's going to be a (forced and melodramatic) "love" story. Just what I wanted.
The following things become very obvious and predicable very quickly:
1) Ghosts are benevolent. This becomes obvious so early, in fact, that I couldn't feel scared or tense at all in the entire film. Which just leaves me with bored.
2) Tom Hiddleston's character and his sister are clearly incestuous. It's obvious from damn near the beginning.
It's like I kept waiting for a twist to come up, for the filmmakers to do SOMETHING different. I was so bored and tired of the stupid characters that I was actively rooting against them. I wanted the ghosts to grow as annoyed with the humans as I was and off them all. But that moment never comes. There is no twist, no grand reveal. Everything is exactly as predictable as you think it will be.
The audience I saw it with was laughing by the end. There were collective groans and sighs of frustration throughout the second half. Eventually, the film just became laughable.
I will say that it's visually very pretty, and the production design was very cool. However, my favorite parts of the film were all the times Loki--I mean, Tom Hiddleston talked about how shitty the house was: There's a hole in the roof; the water is colored red from the clay; the house is sinking; wind blows in through the chimneys; etc. . . I'll be honest, the twist I was really hoping for was for Crimson Peak to turn into a remake of The Money Pit. . . but with ghosts! That would've been entertaining.
