i was today's year old when i found out that Jim Beaver plays in "Crimson peak" as Carter Cushing. I feel dumb 🥲 I watched that movie 5 times and never realised it still now😭
The movie is amazing! I recommend it if you like dark fantasy, dark romance, and supernatural thrillers.
Crimson Peak (2015)
Jim Beaver as Carter Cushing and Tom Hiddleston as Thomas Sharpe
A little moment I didn't catch the first time I watched this film but loved when I noticed it later: Mr. Holly admiring the model bridge and being embarrassed when Mr. Cushing catches him.
is apparently on Netflix right now. I’m so glad nothing bad ever happens to the father characters I always fixate on.
Acclimating to a new (massive) tablet upgrade I’ve been saving up for, so delaying a lot of the things I was planning to work on. Warming up and getting a feel for things with side doodles for now.
‘For the past few days your brother has deemed it fine enough to mix business with pleasure by repeatedly engaging socially with my daughter. My only daughter.’
I feel like Crimson Peak isn’t talked about enough.
SPOILER WARNING IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE FILM.
Also WARNING this post will contain photo’s of creepy SFX ghosts.
If you haven’t seen the beautiful 2015 Gothic Romance film ‘Crimson Peak’ directed by Guillermo del Toro, then I think it’s time you do so.
As a Tom Hiddleston fan, a paranormal/horror enthusiast and a lover of period films I was going to find out about this movie one way or another. At the time that teasers were coming out for the movie, I was just starting a Media Makeup course. So when I saw the behind the scenes of making the ghosts I was so impressed and instantly wanted to see more.
I mean look at how extremely detailed and beautiful these ghost suits are, the two actors that were in the suits Doug Jones and Javier Botet also worked with Del Toro on Pan’s labyrinth, Hell boy and Mama. These suits where made by DDT Efectos Especiales who also won a Oscar for their makeup on Pan’s Labyrinth.
The two red ghost’s are the previous bride’s of Thomas Sharp, and their red colour is linked to the red clay they were disposed in down in the cellar, of which we see Edith nearly discover when she unlocks one of the grates.
They also did the makeup for Edith’s fathers brutal murder, and some more subtle effects like the scars on Lucille’s face that apparently where from getting hit by a cane from her mother.
It was also said that the physical presence of the ‘ghost’s’ helped the actors more, I think we all appreciate any film/director that goes all out and will use practical effects over CGI. It gives this film a more realistic creepy but Gothically beautiful vibe.
Also the set of Allerdale Hall was just breathtaking, it apparently took 6 months to design and was built in Pinewood Toronto Studios. It was a three story set and also had a working elevator and fireplaces.
Wow.
A lot of attention and detail was put into it and you can definitely tell by how stunning the end result was.
I recently watched a youtube video (of which I will link Here ) called ‘10 amazing secrets about Crimson Peak’.
The first fact was that the director, Guillermo del Toro wrote 10 page character biographies for Mia Wasikowska who plays Edith Cushing the main character, Tom Hiddleston who plays Thomas Sharp the male lead and Jessica Chastain who plays Lucille Sharpe, Thomas’s sister.
These included details about the characters childhoods and what their relationship was like with their parents, secrets and even favourite smells.
They were also told to not share this information with any other cast mates. This attention to detail is amazing and just shows how passionate he was about this project. But this also assured that the actors knew their characters like the back of their hand, and understood in what direction the director wanted to go for scenes so they were all on the same page.
I also found out that Benedict Cumberbatch was meant to play Thomas Sharp and his portrayal was going to be a much colder character than Tom’s Thomas. I had a little giggle at this, knowing the two men are close friends.
But as much as I love Benedict, I think Tom was a much better choice for the role.
Another piece of information that I learnt was that Del Toro had two sizes of furniture made, some regular sized and some bigger. When the bigger was used it was used to emphasis the weakness of a character in that scene, and used the smaller to show a stronger character.
Although I’ve not noticed this before I’ll definitely be looking out for it now.
Also the word ‘Fear’ is hidden in the wallpaper all over the house, Del Toro has also had a fascination with moths and butterflies since he was a kid so in the film he used the image of butterflies and moths to show the difference between Edith and Lucille.
If you’re like me and you like a Gothic, Victorian ghost story than this movie is definitely for you.
As Del Toro said, it shouldn’t be seen as a horror. It’s a Gothic romance which to me is extremely beautiful.
This is also how I see it, he also said in a interview that to him the horror isn’t the ghost, it’s the humans. This is something that I always think about as well, as a paranormal enthusiast I get why people are scared of ghosts but humans are scarier and this movie projects that. You think the ghost are wanting to do Edith harm when in fact the ghosts are trying to warn and help her, as it’s the humans that intend on hurting her and nearly succeed.
I just really wanted to talk about this film because I feel like it just isn’t talked about enough, aesthetically it’s such a stunning film from the posters and the promo photos to the actual film its self.
One of my favourite visual scenes is the ending scene where Edith is fighting Lucille outside and there’s fog everywhere, it’s pure white from the show and Ediths hair and nightgown but the blood red clay stains the snow when walked on leaving what looks like bloody footprints. It stains Edith’s white night gown but it’s like a dip dye affect, like its crawling up the dress.
Even the deep bleeding cut on Edith’s pale face, It’s just a beautifully stunning scene.
I just have a lot of love to give this film and I feel like I’ve learnt so much researching to make this post, but I feel like I have so much more to say about it so I’ll probably edit (to actually edit as well, there’s probably typo’s) this post in the future or make a part 2.
