Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak is a horror film without much horror

REVIEW: Storytelling takes a backseat to theatrics as Guillermo del Toro creates a horror movie minus much horror in new film Crimson Peak.

CRIMSON PEAK (MA15+)

Director : Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth)

Starring : Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnam.

Rating : 2.5/5

Mia runs the race, but Jessica runs the show

Mia Wasikowska has always looked as if she was born to be in a movie where she fearfully scampers up and down dimly-lit corridors in an old-timey nightgown. Preferably with a candlestick in hand.

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Now that movie has actually been made. Which means Crimson Peak must be great news for anyone still in the old-timey nightgown (or candlestick) business.

In spite of her perfect casting in this so-so haunted-house thriller, the delicate features and darting eyes of Wasikowska are no match for the unbridled malice and dominant screen charisma displayed throughout by her co-star Jessica Chastain.

Storytelling takes a pronounced backseat to screen atmospherics here, as can often be the case with director Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Pacific Rim).

Unbridled malice: Jessica Chastain saves Crimson Peak.

Wasikowska plays Edith, an aspiring novelist in the early 1900s who gets on the wrong side of a not-quite-right noblewoman named Lucille (Chastain) after marrying her equally-NQR brother Thomas (Tom Hiddleston).

Anyone hoping Crimson Peak might have been the breakout title for the perennially scene-stealing Hiddleston (best known as Loki from the Thor and Avengers sagas) is going to be left wanting yet again.

If anything, he underplays the role of Thomas to the point that you forget he is in the movie when he is not on screen. There ain’t much perceptible sizzle going on between he and Wasikowska going on, either.

Though bewitchingly designed and filmed, it’s hard to overlook that del Toro has made a horror film that barely rustles up a full-blooded scare for its entire running time.

Without the singular work of Chastain, things could have been much worse.

Looking a little peaky: Mia Wasikowska in gets her ye olde nightie out for Crimson Peak

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Originally published as Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak is a horror film without much horror