Guillermo Del Toro’s Crimson Peak is one of the most gorgeous films I’ve ever watched. Allerdale Hall, a set built for the film, drips with atmosphere from the moment Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) steps inside. Its verdant green walls, the patchwork roof that lets snow drift inside, the blood-red clay that collects underneath the estate… Crimson Peak is a visual sensation, and one that I return to frequently. It’s also a film that, to this very day, continues to be mistaken for something it isn’t: horror.
Looking at Universal Pictures marketed Crimson Peak, you can understand why audiences expected a much scarier film. The trailer sets up a paranormal horror story, emphasizing jump scares and the supernatural presence driving Edith to insanity. It’s an intriguing premise for a movie, but it’s also wildly removed from the actual plot of this one, which follows Edith Cushing as she marries English baronet Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), and the tragic romance that unfolds. Furthermore, Crimson Peak also has Del Toro’s name attached to it, and the filmmaker was well-established at the time as a horror master thanks to movies like The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth — even if his last film before this one was the decidedly not scary sci-fi epic Pacific Rim.
The marketing of Crimson Peak as a horror is, as far as Del Toro is concerned, ultimately what doomed the movie to become a stumble for the director. (It earned mixed reviews and made $74.7 million on a budget of $55 million; not bad, but not great either.)
“The thing that will always, pun intended, haunt that movie is that it was sold as a horror movie,” Del Toro told Vulture in 2024. “But I remember distinctly, when we had the meetings [about promotion], they were all targeted toward getting the horror audience for the opening weekend. And I knew we were doomed!”
With Crimson Peak coming out smack-dab in the middle of spooky season on Oct. 16, 2015, the lavish gothic romance never stood a chance to break away from its horror trappings. But clearly, Universal didn’t help.
“I was saying, ‘You should promote the romance, and you should promote the mystery,'” Del Toro told Vulture. “The last thing you want to do is promote it as horror.”
Horror is a far more open-minded and expansive genre than you might think. There’s paranormal horror, queer horror, and body horror, just to name a few. In many ways, you wouldn’t be wrong to say that Crimson Peak does have horror elements within its text. What Edith faces at the hands of Thomas and his sister Lucille Sharpe (Jessica Chastain), even as she falls more in love with Thomas and he with her, is horrific. But ultimately, the horror that Crimson Peak conveys is less about the supernatural, as it was marketed. Instead, as Lucille herself summarizes, “The horror was for love.”
The monstrousness of love is a staple in Gothic literature (just look at Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre), but it’s also one that’s difficult to sell to an audience. The reason is that it can be used to subcategorize. If I had to compare Crimson Peak, a gothic romance, to Del Toro’s 2001 Spanish film The Devil’s Backbone, a gothic horror, the difference is clear. Crimson Peak prioritizes the love between Edith and Thomas, as well as the toxic and incestuous relationship between Thomas and Lucille, against a supernatural backdrop to create suspense and highlight the horrific depths we delve into for the people we love. Meanwhile, The Devil’s Backbone follows a young orphan who is haunted by a ghost seeking to shine a light on the real monsters — namely, the caretaker who’s supposed to be looking after the orphans instead of mistreating them.
The difference between a gothic horror and a gothic romance can feel threadbare, but for audiences, it does matter which is which. I remember watching Crimson Peak because it looked like a supernatural horror story. The fact that I ended up liking it at all, even though it was a “love story with ghosts” rather than the ghost story it was marketed as, was a happy accident. It’s no wonder then that horror audiences were left feeling cold.
It’s not the first time that Del Toro’s had films, in his own words, “hampered and hobbled by misguided marketing.” Speaking to Variety, the director clarified that newest film, the upcoming gothic sci-fi adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, was not a horror movie: “It’s an emotional story for me. It’s as personal as anything. I’m asking a question about being a father, being a son… I’m not doing a horror movie — ever.”
With a history of bad marketing, it’s no wonder Del Toro is adamant about getting ahead of the marketing side of things so that Frankenstein doesn’t fall into the same trap. Unfortunately for Crimson Peak, that boat has long since sailed, but that shouldn’t stop you from revisiting this tragic tale. If you’re seeking a truly stunning movie that captures the emotional intensity of Gothic literature in visual form, with a star-studded cast to boot, or merely seeking to watch one of Del Toro’s best films before Frankenstein comes out, I can’t recommend Crimson Peak, a heartbreakingly misunderstood masterpiece, enough.
