Crimson Peak Review: A Love Letter to Gothic and Victorian Fiction (Spoilers!)
Del Toro’s father never used the room or sat at the desk, but young Guillermo did. He became enormously fascinated by a collection of gothic and Victorian novels, and books on Human anatomy (which informed the design of ghosts in this movie). He read and reread books by Ann Radcliffe, the Bronte sisters, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu etc. and this movie is his love letter to those authors. Notably, when deciding to make this movie he didn’t want to adapt any of their works, he made his own story using the same story conventions and principles, thus, instead of being just a mere interpreter he becomes one of them. One thing to bear in mind is that this film is not a classic horror, it is a gothic romance, which means that it indeed does have elements of horror, but it is not a full blown representative of the genre.When Edith, the main character of the story is asked whether the book that she had written is a ghost story, she answers, ...