In a house that breathes and walls that bleed, a frightened woman running through the halls and screaming for her life sounds like a classic horror flick, but don’t be fooled!

Director Guillermo del Toro, who folks might remember for directing box offices hits like “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Hobbit” trilogy and “Mama,” might be fairly let down with his latest horror attempt, “Crimson Peak.”

This Gothic film, set around the turn of the 20th century, surrounds the life of a wealthy American businessman’s daughter Edith Cushing, an aspiring writer who prefers composing ghost stories rather than romance.

Cushing is portrayed by Mia Wasikowska, who starred in Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland.” Opposite of her is her love interest and source of all her troubles, Sir Thomas Sharpe, played by Tom Hiddleston. Jessica Chastain plays Lady Sharpe, Sir Sharpe’s single, strange and secretive sister who oddly lives in the manor with her brother.

Cushing eventually gets swept up in her own romance with the elusive and seductive Sharpe, an up and coming inventor and owner of the English Manor, Crimson Peak. Cushing, who already lost her mother in the beginning of the movie, is distraught when she hears of her father’s strange and sudden death.

Feeling vulnerable and alone, Cushing hastily marries Sir Thomas Sharpe and moves to Crimson Peak.

Throughout the film, she recalls her mother’s ghost telling her to beware of Crimson Peak. Upon arrival at the manor, Cushing immediately notices weird things and has multiple ghost sightings.
She begins to notice even stranger behavior from her husband and sister-in-law. Not only has he been missing from her bed chambers almost every night, she also catching him lying and suspects he is hiding sinister secrets.

She is inquisitive by nature and the ghosts warn her countless times to leave Crimson Peak for good, but her curiosity leaves her prisoner to her own home, determined to find what happened to her father and the secrets surrounding her husband and sister-in-law. The aspiring writer will dig for answers in this dark and twisted home, even if it kills her.

Not quite a typical horror film or romance, Guillermo del Toro’s “Crimson Peak” is a thinly plotted horror film. It might be a solid addition to your Halloween festivities, but if you are a Guillermo del Toro fanatic, it may leave you underwhelmed and unimpressed.