Crimson Peak (2015)

Episode 47, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd:  Hello, and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  And today’s film, we went back modern a little bit in the sense that the film was, released in 2015, by Guillermo del Toro. This is one of his directorial efforts, he’s always pretty good. The name of the movie is Crimson Peak. Now, the movie may be modern, but the setting of the film is not at all modern. It’s kind of your Victorian like your classic Jane Austen era, gothic romance slash, ghost story, wouldn’t you say, Craig? 

Craig:  Absolutely. Couldn’t have described it better myself. 

Todd:  I guess it starts out with a bit of backstory. It starts out with a woman who’s obviously writing, something. Either she’s reminiscing or she is writing this down in a diary or something like that, talking about her mother and about how, she she believes in ghosts. She definitely believes in ghosts because the first time she saw a ghost was after her mother died. And, we get this image of this girl in this very well-to-do girl, I would say, in a big mansion. Mhmm. And, a ghost visits her at night, and it’s a bit creepy and warns her, about Crimson Peak. And the voice over says ominously, like, that warning came to me a little too late or I didn’t understand what it meant until, it was too late.   So instantly, the movie really sets you off with, I thought, a very intriguing kind of premise. Sometimes, a film with the voice over at the beginning is trying to compensate for something, maybe lacking in the storytelling. But in this case, it did a really good job of, getting us into the story, I thought, almost immediately. And I felt like that was necessary, especially if you’re coming to this movie as a horror film because what you really get for the first, I would say, almost 45 minutes of the movie, if not hour and 20 minutes of the movie is more like a Jane Austen novel playing out, which is not a bad thing. Jane Austen’s great. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Is is that is that the I mean, I don’t know, Craig. That was immediately what I thought of when we’re watching this movie as, oh, Jane Austen. We’re we’re watching a little bit of, Pride and Prejudice or sense and sensibility here. 

Craig:  Yeah. Absolutely. Except like you said, it makes it obvious from the very beginning that it’s gonna have more of a gothic feel, and and that’s that’s cool. You know? It’s an interesting time period, and, it it allows for some really, really amazing set pieces and costuming, and, yeah. I I thought that the tone was established very well. You know, you can tell right away when it opens, that we actually open on what is probably going to be a scene from the ending, and that is the case. You know, it’s just a close-up of our main character Edith’s face played by Mia Wasikowski, and she seems a little bit worse for the wear, and she’s, set against a white backdrop, and that’s when she starts telling the story. And then we get that flashback with the ghost.   And this is the ghost of her mother, and, of course, you know, a young girl is going to be frightened, of a ghost, and the ghost is actually quite frightening to look at. This isn’t, you know, a friendly looking ghost. It’s it’s pretty terrifying, but it just gives her a warning. And and then that really kind of sets up what will be kind of pivotal as far as the whole haunting aspect of the the story goes. And and I I felt very much from the beginning, like, I knew what kind of movie this was going to be, and I was excited, because I I actually like, you know, period piece films when they’re done well, and I thought this one was done well. 

Todd:  Oh my gosh. Yeah. This one was done really well, you know. And, again, Guillermo del Toro, he’s really no stranger to these sort of period pieces, Pan’s Labyrinth, obviously. Set back in time, but also in kind of a very exotic place. To us, the past is very exotic, and and it really is a kind of inaccessible time period where there’s all kinds of different proprieties and social protocols and even manners of speaking which are just not part of us and our culture anymore, at least Western culture. And so, he but he does such a good job of putting films in these kinds of settings and just making every frame sing visually. Oh, man.   I felt like, oh, I felt like this movie was just so beautiful to watch. And we’ve said this before about films, but you could just pause it at any moment, and you have just a perfect picture. 

Craig:  Yeah. I mean, it really is stunning, and that’s that’s pretty characteristic of del Toro’s work, at least what I’m familiar with. Some of his bigger budget stuff, I have not really gotten so well, I guess all all of his stuff is big budget, but, like, the blockbuster type movies that he does. Like, I believe he did Pacific Rim, if I’m not mistaken. Yeah. He did. Not not so much my cup of tea, but he he’s an excellent filmmaker, and you you’re absolutely right. It is just visually stunning.   You know, we after the flashback, we jumped to 14 years later, which puts us in 1901 And, we are in Buffalo, New York. And you mentioned, you know, it’s almost like we’re in America, but it’s almost that sense of aristocracy because you’re we’re we’re working or dealing with these very wealthy, characters and they’re in all these extravagant, locations and it’s just stunning to look at. The costumes are beautiful and one of the things that I think, del Toro does so well is, He makes such beautiful use of color, and and you know, just every every detail is is so intricately planned and and you’re absolutely right. You know, it it feels very artful. Every frame, is beautiful in its own right. 

Todd:  Yeah. We’re we’re really dealing with the the upper class here, And Edith’s father is obviously a wealthy businessman. He says he’s self made. He’s one of these guys who’s risen from tapping rubber, I think is what he said, up to which I’m not even sure what that is. Does he mean, like, literally from a rubber tree? Is that what is that what 

Craig:  I guess. I I missed that detail, but I I assume. 

Todd:  And and but he’s into some kind of mining because, he is meeting with a large group of people, his investors, his board, I guess, of his company. And a man, who is from England, comes in. He’s played by Thomas Hiddleston. His name is Thomas Sharp, and he comes with this contraption. He’s obviously making an appeal to the board for some investment in his contraption that he has invented in order to dig deeply into the clay, which he claims is, some of the richest clay in all of England because it makes such good bricks that’s on his family’s estate. Apparently, his clay mines there did very well for their family, but now they’ve fallen into this long patch where the clay has just been, it’s so deep now that they can’t get to it without this special equipment. It was a little bizarre that that whole thing, his equipment there. Obviously, it’s just a device for the story.   The real problem here is that mister Cushing just doesn’t like him. There’s just something about him. Even though he’s polite, even though he’s kind, he sort of deep down inside feels like there’s a scam going on. And so he sends a private investigator off to investigate him. 

Craig:  Yeah. And I think that part of the reason that he doesn’t like him is because he views him as being, just a spoiled member of the aristocracy. He does have some sort of title. I don’t remember what it was. But he he comes from a wealthy family and mister Cushing, very American guy, is all about, you know, building your own success and not just inheriting it from somebody else. And I think that that’s where his initial distaste comes from.   The men at this table, all of us, came up through honest hard work. Well, maybe not all of us. Mister Fersen here is a lawyer, but even he can’t help that. I started as a steel worker, raising buildings before I could own them. My hands, feeling rough. The reflection of who I am. Now you, sir, when I shook your hand, you’ve got the softest hands I’ve ever felt. In America, we bank on effort, not privilege.   That is how we built this country.   Meanwhile, the rest of, wealthy society in, Buffalo seem to be really fascinated with this guy. And in fact, one of the wealthy women is trying to set up her husband with him, but it becomes obvious, very quickly that Todd and Edith feel some attraction or connection to one another, which does not go unnoticed by her father, which makes him further suspicious, and I believe that’s when he hires the investigator. Meanwhile, mr sharp Todd kind of begins a Seduction of sorts with her, and from the very beginning Something seemed a little bit off about him. Tom hittlesen Has a look where he’s very dapper and and well mannered, but there’s also sort of a darkness to him and when he He’s supposed to be attending this party and I think that the purpose of the party really is to introduce him to society and really to set him up with this other wealthy girl who is apparently kind of edith’s nemesis but instead of going to the party stag he stops and invites edith to go as his his date his escort and it becomes apparent then that he is courting her and there’s you know a scene where They dance together and everybody stands around and watches and it’s all very romantic. But also at the party we meet Todd sister Lucille Sharp played by academy award winning actress jessica chastain and again She’s very proper and you know, she’s she’s playing the piano. She’s very talented. But there’s just appears to be something off about her as well. And so I knew right away that something perhaps a little bit shady was going on.   And I I really thought that this movie was incredibly well made. If I had any criticism of it and maybe by the end of the podcast, I’ll have had more than 1. But really the only one I can kind of think of is that I found the movie to be pretty predictable. I kind of felt that I had what was going on figured out very early on. What did you think? 

Todd:  No. You know, I I felt like some of that was by design. I mean, I felt like you were supposed to feel uneasy about them. I feel like that’s what really propelled us through the movie because, other than that, if you’re into this for horror and you’re coming here for some kind of suspense, what you’re really getting is more of just a courtship drama. Again, like I say, in kind of a Jane Austen sense in that, Edith, her character is just really strong willed. She’s one of these, women who is not of her time. She is the woman who doesn’t need a man. She gets she’s trying to be an author.   She’s a writer. She’s writing stories. She’s trying to get this story published. In one of the earlier scenes, she goes to her editor, and he sits down there and he says, well, you need to throw a romance in here. And she says, well, it’s it’s a ghost story. And he’s she she basically says, he’s just saying that because I’m a woman. You you get this sense that she’s up against, she’s trying to make her own way in a man’s world, and she’s not going to, fall for the things that the men around her or the directions the men around her are pushing her or expecting her to go into. And so I feel like that’s a thread throughout, the earlier part of this movie as well.   She falls for this guy. There’s obviously maybe a little bit of a love triangle here because there’s also a doctor. 

Craig:  Alan McMichael is his name, played by Charlie Hunnam of Sons of Anarchy. 

Todd:  That’s right. McMichael, who seems to be interested in her as well. And so there’s kind of these, you know, these requited loves or these this this whole courtship drama I think going on in which culminates in that scene that you’re referring to at the at the at the dance where he, is going to, as entertainment for the party, introduce the group to the European waltz. And he holds up a candle with a flame on it and he says, You know, it’s said that the a properly done waltz is so smooth that when you dance with a candle, the flame will not flicker out. And he but of course, for that, you need the perfect partner. He picks her, you know. All these things are just 

Craig:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  Are just scenes out of these kind of romance stories, and those are interesting and intriguing in and of themselves. If you come here for a horror film by this point in the movie, you may be a little more disappointed, I think, if you didn’t have that underlying edge of something is something more is not right about this. We’re not just talking about love triangles and and people scheming against each other, but but there is actually something wrong with this couple. So I I actually thought that that kept the movie, it kept that sense of dread that the movie starts with underlying this, and it did a really good job, I think, of mixing the 2. I felt like when I watched this movie, this movie would appeal to my wife quite a bit, and not because she’s a woman, but because she likes these kind of movies. She’s not really into horror or ghosts. Well, she likes the gothic ghost stories, but she does like these, again, these Jane Austen style dramas. And I felt like this had so much of that on its surface that it needed that undercurrent of dread throughout it to point to, to lead us into what really the second half of the movie is all about. 

Craig:  Well and I certainly thought that it was suspenseful and that it does do a good job of this impending sense of dread. I just felt that it was a little bit transparent in the storytelling. When when edith and thomas Todd courting there’s obviously some shady stuff going on with thomas and his sister lucile And you know, we get to see them kind of conspiring and and she at some point, you know says, you picked her we have to get this done something along those lines and he asks, he asks Lucille for her ring. He says, I’m going to need the ring. And she says, the ring is mine. I earned it, and I’m going to want it back. So it just seemed plus the fact that he, Thomas, was trying to do business with her father and he was rejected, It seemed pretty apparent that they were running a scam. And I don’t know if that was intentional or not, but it seemed apparent to me that lucille and thomas were conspiring and that probably that their end game was to have Thomas marry this girl for her connection, and and hopefully kind of try to weasel their way into the family and into the family’s money in that way.   I don’t know. Maybe they weren’t trying to be, maybe they weren’t trying maybe the filmmakers weren’t trying to keep that a mystery. But it it’s I don’t know. And and as we move forward, we find out more about the history of Thomas and Lucille, and we find out more about their motivation. I just I never felt surprised. Like, I always felt like I was a step ahead of it. Like I I knew what was coming. Even things towards the end of the movie or at least the latter half of the movie that I felt were supposed to be shocking reveals, I wasn’t shocked.   Really? I saw them coming a mile away. 

Todd:  You know, I I didn’t see that any of this was intended to be a shocking reveal. I felt like the movie was very deliberately, showing us, you know, layer by layer peeling back the onion, and not really pulling punches about it. So I guess what you’re saying is you wanted a little more of that kind of suspense, not the kind of suspense of, oh, something something shady is going on here, and I could see that they’re scamming her, and I wonder what’s gonna happen to her, but more the suspense of what are they doing. You 

Craig:  Right. You kinda wanted those views. I think that’s kind of and and and it’s not like that. And and that’s okay. You know, if that’s what they were going for, it is still suspenseful. You know, knowing that their intentions are not good, you then know that this girl could potentially be in trouble. And so there’s still the suspense there. You know, what’s going to happen? What are they going to do? What is the end game? And I I still appreciated that.   I enjoyed the movie. Don’t get me wrong. I just I I felt that it was a little transparent in that way. 

Todd:  I mean, it’s like it’s like seeing a person delivered into the lion’s claws, you know. You’re wondering, to me, it wasn’t really about, I what and again, just like you, I I knew exactly that that they were doing bad things. Like, exactly what they were doing, and exactly what their scam was, and exactly what their end game was, I don’t think is is is terribly obvious. But but you’re right, it’s bald on its face that they’re doing these these things to to to the viewer. But to me, then the interesting thing and the suspense comes from, well, what’s gonna happen to this girl? When is she gonna figure it out, and how is she gonna figure it out? Right. Her father gets killed by a mysterious stranger, and at first they don’t even realize that he’s been killed. They think it’s an accident, and as brutal as it is, and and I’ll say that that scene where he’s visited and this is some time has passed, there’s a dinner party, and the private investigator has revisited the father, and he has a document in his hand, and he points to it. And the father looks at it, and this is clearly the smoking gun.   We don’t know what the document is, but we know that it’s showing that Todd is not all that he seems. His father is alarmed and he wants him to break off his relationship with his daughter. And so he pulls him aside, and if he pulls him and his sister aside, he hands them a check, says this is even more generous than it should be, but this is basically his bribe to get them away from them out of the country. Here’s your money, and by the way, I also want you to break my daughter’s heart thoroughly. 

Craig:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  And so he does. And this actually is a scene that that surprised me a little bit. Obviously, they’ve been running this scam. You feel like maybe there really is or there really may be something between him and her, or it might just be he’s just that good of a of a scam artist. 

Craig:  Con artist. 

Todd:  Con artist. Yeah. Unless they do share some really touching and nice little scenes. But again, the whole time you’re True. But we do know that this guy’s a con artist, so just how good is he or how much is he falling for his mark? And he goes in and really coldly and without any hesitation, puts her down. Just basically, not only does he stand up and announce to the entire table quite suddenly, that he, is leaving. He and his sister have to go back to England, which causes Edith to storm out of the room. Edith.   He follows Edith. 

Craig:  You’re leaving us. 

Clip:  We must return home immediately and attend to our interests. And with nothing to hold us in America. 

Craig:  I see. 

Clip:  Your novel. I read 

Craig:  the new chapters. I’ll have them delivered in the morning. That’s very good of you. Thank you. Would you still like to know my thoughts? If we must. 

Clip:  It’s absurdly sentimental. The aches that you describe with such earnestness, the pain, the loss, you clearly haven’t lived at all. In fact, you only seem to know what other writers tell you. 

Craig:  That’s enough. You insist on describing the torments of love when you 

Clip:  clearly know nothing about them. 

Craig:  I’m not done yet. 

Clip:  What do you dream of? A kind man, a pure soul to be redeemed, a wounded bird you can nourish. Affection. Affection has no place in love for Edith. I advise you to return to your ghosts and fancies, The sooner, the better. You know precious little of the human heart or love or the pain that comes with it. 

Craig:  You’re nothing but a spoiled child. 

Todd:  The whole time he’s been encouraging her in her writing. He’s been the only person, who’s been encouraging her and telling her her 

Craig:  characters are interesting and her story is interesting. 

Todd:  You know, the look on his face during this is, interesting and her story is interesting. You know, the look on his face during this is like, I did what I have to do. It it, I I don’t even I didn’t I don’t know about you, but I didn’t even see a glimmer of, boy, I really hated doing that, during that scene. Did you? 

Craig:  No. I mean, he yeah. He just turns very cold, on her. And then when she walks away, he kind of stands there pensively. I don’t know. I I it it just seemed like they had been caught, you know, and and he really had no choice because, Edith’s father had had, you know, Thomas asked, does she know? And the father says no, but if but I will tell her if you don’t do what I tell you to do. So it almost seems like they he he has no choice but to go along with this at least at this point. But then the very next morning while the dad is shaving in his I I don’t know.   He called it a club or a lounge or something. He’s attacked very brutally and killed, and and I thought that that scene was incredibly brutal, and that’s something else that, del Toro is kind of known for. It’s just some really very graphic violence. A figure, a dark figure in all black. We don’t see their face. We don’t see any, you know, identifying things about them, but they approach him while he’s near a sink and grab him and smash his head several times into the porcelain sink and really just break. You know, his head is, like, caved in 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  Which I thought was kind of humorous that they would even consider for a second that because there was water on the floor, they speculated that he had just slipped and fallen, but no slip and fall would cause that kind of damage. 

Todd:  Yeah. Breaking the floor. 

Craig:  I I also right. I I also thought that it was a little naive of everyone to not even throw any suspicion at Thomas. You know, I I guess that nobody besides the private investigator really knew that there was tension between the 2 of them, But it just I don’t know. 

Todd:  Well, and Thomas But anyway supposedly left the country by now too. So, you know, there’s maybe that aspect, but you’re right. You’re right. It really hinges on nobody realizing that there was tension between them. Otherwise, it is, kind of silly for nobody. Although, you know, it it does introduce this element, which I felt was a little underdeveloped of the doctor, the doctor friend, who, when they’re looking at the Todd. And there’s actually an earlier scene where she’s visiting, the doctor and, she’s looking through his books on his shelf and, he’s an eye doctor, basically. He has all these ophthalmology books, and then he the last one is, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, you know, and he says, well, you know, he was an eye doctor.   And there’s a little bit of, oh, you fancy yourself a detective, and he pulls out these slides that he’s gotten, or he says that these photographs are are on glass, and so they can’t be faked. And they’re pictures of, what are supposed to be ghostly images. So he he clearly has a little bit of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in him, maybe a stand in for that guy who was also, you know, famously interested in the supernatural and believed in that stuff. And so when they go to investigate the body, he wants to kind of dig into the head, and he sees little bits of porcelain in there. He’s clearly there’s like a little bit of suspicion for him Todd, or at least he wants to think Yeah. That there’s some forensic stuff he can do here. And she’s like, oh, cover it up, cover it up, you know, he’s still that’s my dad. And and she kind of freaks out a little bit, which prevents that from going much further.   That element really isn’t explored much, though. I mean, he’s the only one who maybe is a little bit suspicious of what happened, but he’s, I guess, prevented from investigating, although there’s nothing that would have stopped him once she left the room from pursuing his own line of questioning, you know, down this path. And to be fair, he he kind of does later on in the movie. He does track down the investigator. He does figure out that, there was some tension between them, and he I would say maybe it’s just because it’s too slowly, but he’s almost half heartedly following casually, I guess I should say, following this, this little investigation, of the man even though he’s he’s he and, and, Edith, have been married and are out of the country now. 

Craig:  Right. I understand what you’re saying. I guess I would justify that by saying even though he suspects that there’s something shady going on, well, I guess aside from the fact that her father was brutally killed, he he maybe doesn’t think that she’s in any in imminent danger. 

Todd:  Maybe that’s it. 

Craig:  Because with with with the father out of the way, maybe he just thinks, well, he married her for the money, and he’s gonna get the money. And and I would like for her to know that, but not necessarily that she’s in any in any immediate danger but you’re right. I I in that scene I think that they just had to include that to plant the seed that there is somebody Who is looking out for her who does care about her? And as long as it takes because with the death of her father, she is now an orphan. She doesn’t have any family. Fortunately for her, Thomas had stayed to comfort her. And we see that even at her father’s funeral, she is already wearing the ring that Thomas got from his sister. So, that escalated very quickly, and they they are married and then they move immediately to, oh gosh, Cumberland, England, and the name of the estate is Allerdale Hall. And and so we we jump immediately there.   And that you know, I really liked all of the stuff before that, but, oh my gosh, was this setting   cool. 

Todd:  I know right. 

Craig:  They they pull up oh, gosh. They pull up to this enormous manner, you know, just it’s kind of on, like, what looks like the classic English moors, like, not a lot of trees, a lot of flat land. What distinguishes it as the property is that all of the ground is blood red because of this clay. And it’s a very haunting image. The the the the house itself is is very dark, you know, almost, black against the white, skyline. And they, you know, they approach the the house, and they they go inside, and it’s just it’s it’s it’s rundown and dark and decrepit, but it you can tell that at one time it was really just an amazing amazing home, and it’s fallen into disrepair. And he explains to her that the reason is because, you know, they his father blew the family fortune, and they’ve just never been able to recover. And he and his sister have stayed there in an attempt to try to restore their family and their house to its, former glory.   You know, there’s definite hints of, the fall of the house of Usher there. 

Todd:  Yeah. I was just gonna say that. 

Craig:  And and and the house itself, like like I said, just such amazing use of color. They walk into this huge, big, oh, gosh, lobby is the best word that I can 

Todd:  come up with. 

Clip:  Todd do you think? Does it look the part? 

Craig:  It does. Although it’s even colder inside than out. 

Todd:  I know 

Clip:  it’s a disgrace. We try to maintain the house as best we can, but with the cold and the rain, it’s impossible to stop the damp and erosion. And are the mines right below? Well, the wood is rotting, and the house is sinking. 

Todd:  Check your 

Craig:  I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be, like, paper or parts of the the roof that were falling in. It it’s it was very ethereal and looks almost like ghostly just an amazing, amazing set piece. And and there’s a lot to it, you know. We don’t just get the, the main entrance. We see lots of different rooms, big hallways. There’s a huge cellar in the bottom. And what I read was that they actually erected that entire house, on a sound stage, and every single item in the house was fabricated specifically for this movie. Nothing was recycled, everything was specifically designed and created for the movie, and you can tell how much attention was given to detail, and it is just stunningly beautiful to look at. 

Todd:  Oh my gosh. It’s amazing. And and the house itself is sinking into the, you know, there’s a part in the floor and the at the bottom where she steps on some boards and the clay is squishing up, from between the boards, which which honestly, like, I guess, is it the best clay that’s buried deep? Because there was sure no no difficult way of getting to the clay, that I could see. It was everywhere. That’s the part that confused me a little bit, as well as his contraption that he designed, seemed to dig pretty close to the surface. I just wasn’t real like, I was a little unclear, as to the actual problem that they needed the machine for, and the money for with the mining, because all that clay just seemed to be right there on the surface for the taking. Right. And the machine didn’t seem to dig very deep.   That’s a minor thing. We’re talking about the beauty of the house and the setting, which I completely agree with you. Totally gorgeous, and just plops you right in. You know, that’s the part in which you pull your bowl of popcorn closer because you’re like, here we are. This is gonna be a classic gothic ghost story because the setting is just there. 

Craig:  Right. And it’s And at this point, it was starting to remind me a lot of, The Woman in Black Yes. I believe was the name of the movie we watched with Daniel Radcliffe. And I thought that movie was okay for what it was. This movie, I think, does what that movie was trying to do even better, and the story is much more compelling. Even though I found it to be a little bit predictable, it’s still a much more compelling story, and there’s a lot more interesting stuff going on, but very, very reminiscent of the feel of that movie too. 

Todd:  Yeah. And and even the haunting a little bit. You know, the outsider comes in. This woman is now coming into this old home, that has this past. This has this history, and she has to try to fit into it in some way, You know, and she’s she’s married into this family, but this family, it’s just so sad. It’s just the this this guy and his sister. And so there’s there’s clearly some tension between her and the sister from the beginning. And when you talk about the movie being predictable, I saw this coming a mile away too.   I thought, well, this is definitely not his sister, or at least that was my thought coming in here. There’s there’s something going on. And in my head, I pieced together, you know what? I think those 2 are actually married. And, Yep. Yeah. You you probably did too. I’ve I and I’m not sure if the movie tries to hide it or not, but, No. You’ve seen enough of this sort of thing.   You’re you know, it’s it’s pretty obvious. 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. I mean and they they can’t have been trying to be I they they can’t have been trying to hide it because everything is so shady right from the beginning. He walks when they walk in, there’s like a groundskeeper or something, and they say this is, the husband says this is my wife, and the groundskeeper says, I know you’ve been married for some time now. And, keeper says, I know you’ve been married for some time now. And, Edith says, well, what was that supposed to mean? And Thomas is like, I don’t know what he means. How would I know what he means? And then immediately, like, they go in the house, and she immediately sees what appears to be some sort of apparition, which Thomas just tries to blow off. When they find, Lucille, she is you can tell that she’s feigning being nice, and that it’s shady. And then she, you know, Edith asks for keys to the house, which Lucille carries, on a big key ring attached to her dress.   And, Lucille says, you don’t need them. You know, there is parts of this house that are dangerous. Just go to the rooms that are unlocked, and you’ll be okay. You know? It’s tons of shady stuff. And then you can tell without question that, Lucille does not like Edith and Thomas being together. You can tell that there’s jealousy there. You can tell that she’s fishing for information. Like, at one point, she shows Edith this book and asked her if she’d ever heard of, I don’t remember what it’s called, but it’s that thing where if you, twist, the pages of the book, it will reveal an illustration, on the pages.   And she shows her one and it’s got an erotic painting on it. And she says, but this shouldn’t make you comfortable now that you and Thomas have. And, Lou and Edith says, oh, well, he was very respectful of my mourning. And so it’s very obvious that they haven’t consummated their relationship yet. And, Lucille seems very pleased by that. But even the fact that she was fishing for that information, it was awkward, you know? So you know that there is something going on, and and it’s it’s not subtle. Thomas and Lucille have little conversations where it’s obvious that this is a setup. So again, the suspense kind of comes from okay.   Well, what what’s gonna happen now? Another thing that I liked about the movie was that it didn’t It wasn’t as the haunting stuff wasn’t a slow reveal We know that edith can see ghosts and as soon as she gets there she starts seeing them After you know those introductions, I believe it’s it’s the very first night sometime in the night she gets up and sees a a blood red ghost and you know, it’s bumps in the night, but then she you know, she’s seeing these ghosts too, and she continues to see them throughout. And they are scary, and they’re pretty grotesque, But you can’t I’m sorry. You know, if if you haven’t seen the movie and you don’t want any more spoilers at this point, don’t listen. But I suspected from the get go that these ghosts were not the threat to her. If anything, the ghosts were trying to warn her and trying to help her And as it turns out that’s exactly the case the danger that she faces is from, the the brother and sister and then just Throughout the next 45 minutes or whatever We just get little pieces of information that fill in this story and what they are actually doing and what they have done in the past. 

Todd:  Yeah. And and and, again, it it has so many elements. This movie is clearly a love letter to films like this that came before it. I even think back to the low budget, like Roger Corman films. When they first come into the house and he’s showing them around and she first sees the ghost, it disappears into an elevator, which goes up some floors seemingly by itself. And she goes, what’s that? You know, why is the elevator going up? And, again, his his argument is, well, it’s, it’s just always been temperamental, and sometimes it just has a mind of its own. By the way, don’t go below this level. Right.   Don’t ever go below this level. 

Craig:  And he always he always has some explanation for anytime something out of the ordinary happens. You know, it’s it’s the wind. It’s this. You know, there’s there’s all the time these terrible noises throughout the house, and he always has some sort of explanation for it. But we know having witnessed multiple ghosts that there is something supernatural going on I couldn’t tell if if, thomas and lucille were aware of supernatural activity or not. And I kinda came to the conclusion that they were just not aware of it. Was that the sense you got? 

Todd:  Yeah. You’re right. I was just gonna bring that up myself. The fact that, that I think is also another interesting question and mystery in the movie is are they hiding the ghostly activity or are they just not being visited? And I think at the end of the day, they’re probably not being visited. And my explanation for that would be, well, the ghosts aren’t haunting them because they they don’t have anything to warn them about. You know? 

Craig:  The 

Todd:  ghosts are haunting, anyone who comes into the house and falls into their clutches. So that that is is a neat element, I thought. And then, of course, you know, the the parts of the house that are forbidden, you know, that she that the ghost eventually leads her down into, and she sees a mysterious crate down there with initials on it. And, and, there’s a there’s a 

Craig:  A woman’s name. 

Todd:  A woman’s name, yeah, on the lock. And, then when she sees the keys and gets a better look at the key ring, she sees one of the keys has that name on it. So she steals the key so that she can get downstairs, later and unlock that trunk to see what’s inside. I mean, it just unfold. It was just the kind of movie I wanted to see. You know, you just these Mhmm. Films don’t come along that much anymore. And if it does come along, they’re usually kinda low budget and maybe not as well done to have this fantastic director pay so much attention to the visuals.   This is like when those movies were popular and could still really scare an audience, this is what they must have been like. You know, they must have been this impressive, they must have been this scary, they must have been this visually arresting. And so I really feel like this movie is part and parcel, 100% an update of those classic films. And in a sense, that I think is why it’s predictable. But again, as I think you and I are unpacking it, we’re realizing, well, it’s it’s it’s not meant to be unpredictable, it’s just meant to be one of those kind of films, and it still does have its mysteries in there. And and we’re gonna spoil it again for you, but for what I did not see, coming was the fact that they actually were brother and sister. 

Craig:  Oh, I saw it coming on my way. 

Todd:  You did. So you saw incest here. 

Craig:  Oh, yeah. I totally did. It it’s that idea of incest or the suggestion of incest is not uncommon in gothic literature. And so I I thought, obviously, this woman is is jealous that she has an intimate relationship with, with with Thomas. I’m talking about the sister lucille and I I thought I I think that they’re brother and sister and that they are having An affair that they are a couple. Again, you know, they’re It’s a little bit reminiscent of the fall of the house of usher There’s a little bit of suggestion of that in that story. Although it’s never, really played out. I wasn’t surprised by it at all.   Plus there were, you know, there were hints all along the way like lucille tells edith at one point that she and her brother Edith says I can just imagine you all playing in this house when it was beautiful when you were kids. And she said, no. We were never allowed here. We were always confined to the to the nursery 

Todd:  in the 

Craig:  attic. And then that’s where you get, you know, some shades of, like, flowers in the attic where you take 2 young people and you confine them together in a small space and they’re the only company one another has, you’re asking for trouble. Eventually they’re eventually they’re gonna hit adolescence and they’re gonna turn to one another. And especially because Lucille, we find out later, is unhinged. She’s she’s Craig. And and she’s older. She was older than her brother, and so I think that she was able to kind of seduce him and has been able to continue seduce him into doing these things. Initially, I just thought that they were equally in on it together, and to an extent, I think that they were.   But I think that del Toro tried towards the end of the movie to make Thomas a little bit more sympathetic and that he realizes that he really has come to fall for Edith, And he doesn’t want to continue the life that he and Lucille have been living. He doesn’t want to sever their ties entirely. You know, at some point, he go well, we find out, Luz, Edith is putting things together. You know, the ghosts leading her to things. She finds she’s getting sick. She finds this recording that this other woman had made, and she finds pictures that show that Thomas has been married several times to several different women. There was even a child, in one of the photographs with one of the women, And the ghost, leads her to these recordings where, she says, they’re just they’re just after my money. They’re killing me, they’re poisoning the tea, which totally makes sense because now Edith is getting sick too.   Meanwhile, back in America, doctor Michael is McMichael is putting all this together too. So we we we figure out that they have been in the business of doing this for a while. He has gone through several wealthy wives. They get them to sign over their inheritance, and then they off them, in one way or another. So we we figure out, that that is what’s going on and as does Edith, and then it becomes, is she gonna get away with it? Or are they going to get away with it? Is is is she gonna fall to the same fate that these other women did, or is she gonna make it? And it seems like, no, she’s not. You know, they’re so removed from any other people. And at this point, the snow has come in, and they’re completely snowed in. And the ghost, finally leads, Edith into a room where she finds Thomas and Lucille engaged in some sort of sexual activity.   And and that’s where everything’s out in the open, you know, and and Lucille even says that. You this is who we are, and this is why you’re here. And she rips the ring violently off of her finger and puts it onto her own, And, she’s she’s advancing there on one of the upper levels of the staircase on a balcony, And Thomas starts shouting, don’t do it. Don’t do anything. There’s somebody at the door. But Lucille is in a rage, and she pushes Edith off this big balcony, and she hits on the way down another one of the terraces and then lands right on the stone floor. That was the only thing that I didn’t see coming because I thought, oh, she’s surely dead. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  There’s no way anybody could survive that   fall. And so when she woke up and and, you know, the the the point of view that we have is her eyes opening up, and she sees there her friend, doctor McMichael, who has come to try to rescue her from this. I was a little bit I I rolled my eyes a little bit. You know? I thought there’s no way   she could have survived that. There’s just no way.   And in a couple of in a couple of scenes, she’s getting up and running around. And and there’s just absolutely no way that would happen. But suspension of disbelief, you know, you just go with it. 

Todd:  Yeah. You’re right. I felt the same way. I don’t know if maybe hitting that balcony on the way down somehow broke her fall enough or slowed her down enough that we’re supposed to believe. I thought it would have just done more damage personally. 

Craig:  Yeah. 

Todd:  But, yeah, it is pretty convenient too that doctor McMichael can come in, and they made such a big deal about being snowed in that they really just glossed over the fact that, well, he was able to get there. You know, you you you felt like they were setting this up, that it’s just gonna be the 3 of them, you know, until this is done because, it’s impassable. You know, the snow is just too great and all that, but he’s able to come in and and there’s really no big deal made of it. And he does show up. He tries to get her out, and, there’s they’re just basically big action scene from here on out, where there’s fighting amongst them and, then fighting between the brother and the sister. 

Craig:  It’s it’s it’s I don’t know. You know? Like, they like, we’re dissecting it now, and I’m thinking there really wasn’t even a whole lot of point for him to show up other than to allow him to be the white knight because he doesn’t really do anything He tries to get her out, but he’s then stabbed by Lucille And, Lucille tells Thomas to finish the doctor off, and and, Thomas goes to him in the doorway and says 

Clip:  If I don’t do it, she will. 

Todd:  But listen to me. 

Clip:  You’re a doctor. Shut me where? 

Craig:  And I   didn’t know if he was asking I didn’t know if he was asking, tell me where to stab you so that it will be quick, or if he was saying, tell me where to stab you so that it won’t be fatal. And it turns out that it’s the latter. He he’s you know, this is where, you know, it seems like he doesn’t want any further carnage. Enough is enough. It it was revealed, the doctor, he got the same information from the detective that the father had gotten. And as it turns out, their mother had died under mysterious circumstances too, by a blunt, injury to the head, and the doctor has put it together that because Thomas was 12 and Lucille was 14 that it was most likely Lucille who did it. And after that, Lucille was sent off somewhere. He assumes when it’s silent, which turns out to be true.   So he knows what’s going on, and now everybody knows what’s going on. But as it turns out, Thomas did not deliver a fatal blow. Instead, he takes the doctor down to the cellar and says, I will get her here to you, and you guys can escape together, but you have to let me take care of it on my own. And that’s when he goes upstairs where lucille is trying to force Edith to sign her name to this document that would release the rest of her estate to to Todd. And then he knows thomas knows that as soon as Edith signs that that she’s going to be killed. And then we get the final bit of the story, and it’s it’s delivered very well by Jessica Chastain. And she talks about how The baby in the photograph was not the other woman’s baby. She said that she had been successful in keeping all of the other wives from ever consummating their relationship with her brother but that the baby had in fact been hers and she said that it had been born wrong and they should have just let it die at birth.   But this other woman Who is apparently thomas’s wife at the time said that she could save the baby? And so they tried to keep it for a while, but eventually they, it appears they killed both that woman and the child because we see both of those ghosts there. And then, you know, we’re we’re getting very quickly to the end. I don’t remember oh, how does it happen that, Edith is oh, I remember she she signs the paper and when luciel takes the paper she kind of turns around to inspect it and Edith, stabs her in the neck with the her fountain pen that she had been writing with and then Edith runs towards the elevator and meets Tom there and Tom has an interesting proposal for her. So what Tom suggests he says She says you lied to me. You said you loved me and he says I do love you He says I know that you don’t trust me But if you’ll wait for me this one last time I’ll leave with you He says you can leave if you want to, but if you wait for me, I’ll come with you. And he goes to, talk to his sister and, Edith does wait, which I thought was really stupid. I don’t know why she would wait. But Tom goes in to talk to Lucille, and they have a really interesting, conversation where she says, you promised you wouldn’t ever fall in love with any of them.   And he says, I know I promised, but it happened. And he says, let’s go away from here. We can start a new life. We won’t have to be tied to this place. We can be free and we can all be together. Yeah And it appears that lucille is kind of getting on board with this leaving the house behind until he says we can all be together At which point, she again flies into a murderous Craig, and she has a knife, and she stabs him twice in the chest and once in the face, like, right into or underneath his cheekbone. 

Todd:  Which was a little unrealistic. I mean, I don’t think he she could’ve gotten through his cheekbone there. That was distracting for me, I think. 

Craig:  I wondered the same thing. I thought maybe if she just got in right underneath it, but then when he goes to pull it out, it really has a lot of resistance and that so it must have been the suggestion that it went through his bone. But that was the fatal blow. He pulls it out and then he dies. And so then Lucille goes on the hunt for, for Edith, and that is when the final showdown takes place. 

Todd:  That’s right. 

Craig:  They end up in the cellar where, Edith is is hiding with the doctor, but Lucille finds her down there and and lifts up one of the floor stones and says, before they sent me off to that asylum, I I hid a souvenir and she pulls out this enormous meat cleaver that she had used, to kill her mother And so she starts chasing lucille around with it, and Lucille climbs up the excavating, machine out into the snow, and that’s when I realized, oh, this is it. This is where we saw her at the very beginning. And again, it’s, you know, this the snow, it’s almost like a fog. Like, it’s it’s so heavy that you can’t really see the things that are going on, and you’ll just see Lucille run by in the background, quickly, and she’s able to kind of use the snow as as cover to make these quick attacks at Lucille, or at Edith, excuse me. And they go back and forth until eventually Lucille says   I won’t stop till you kill me or I kill you. 

Todd:  Help me. 

Craig:  There’s no one here to help you. Yes, there is.   Look at him turn around And there is the ghost of thomas which obviously distracts her and gives, She turns back around and says I’m not gonna Todd. I’m gonna kill you unless you kill me, At which point, Edith, strikes her a blow with the shovel first in the face and then directly down on her head clearly breaking her neck. And that was my favorite line in the movie when, Edith says, I heard you the first time.   I just thought it was such an interesting little bit   of humor in a movie that has had absolutely really no humor throughout, but it was also just kinda one of those that yeah. Yeah. Like, you got her, and I appreciated that. 

Todd:  It was really a nice touch, I think, at the end, you know, to see the ghost revisit The the ghostly, apparitions come back into play, revisit at the end, and, you do get that, sort of tragic romance angle here too of, of Todd, revisiting and and helping out in a way his, his lost love. I don’t know. It just it’s it’s so many different layers here of and I think they work. I feel like the movie really works, and I think you do too. It’s just, it’s just such a nice, classic, Again, classic films, you feel like you’ve seen it before, but just in such a good way. Like, I like these kind of movies. I love these kind of movies. And to see a modern version of it that still retains all of the classic elements that make these movies so enjoyable for me.   It just fires on all cylinders, for me anyway. I just I just I loved every single bit of it. And when I was done with it, I was like, man, I’m going to take this film. I’m going to cut out the little what little gory parts there are, and my wife and I are gonna sit down and watch this because she’s gonna she’s gonna go crazy over it because she loves these kind of movies too. 

Craig:  It it’s a really, really good movie, and you’re absolutely right. It’s such a nice throwback, you know, even to, like, the house on haunted hill or the haunting and those types of films. I just feel like he knew what that kind of movie should be if it was done right, and he did it right. Yeah. It’s just it’s just really, really well executed. And and you’re del Toro is a good He he has a talent for kind of mixing genres It doesn’t really feel like a horror movie. Yes. It’s suspenseful.   Yes. It’s scary in parts but it it it really feels more like a period drama. And that was something that was interesting. You know, in the beginning when she was talking about her book and she was talking to that condescending editor, he said, oh, it’s a ghost story. And and he kind of trivialized that, and she said, no, it’s just a story, and ghosts happen to figure into it. But the ghosts are really more of a metaphor just for the past. And then he told her that she should throw in a love story, which she eventually did with some success. And that ends up being what this movie was.   Yep. It’s a ghost story, but really, it’s it’s more of a drama where the ghosts play a particular role, and they do represent the past. And she has this monologue, a voice over monologue at the end where she talks about sometimes things linger, sometimes it’s because of a strong feeling like passion or or Craig. Sometimes it’s, After the result of some terrible violence or or a violent death but she says the ones that are that stick around or are imprinted in certain places because of a certain feeling of passion or revenge Those never leave and the final shot that we get is of a ghostly Lucille at her piano obviously still in the manner on crimson peak and you get the the feeling that she will probably remain there forever, and that maybe That was what she wanted all along because she and her brother will now be there together forever, I guess. 

Todd:  Yeah. It just it wraps up so well. It wraps up 

Craig:  so well. It does. 

Todd:  Well, thank you for listening to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please share this with a friend. We’re on Itunes and Stitcher. You can also find our Facebook account. Please check us out there. Leave us a comment. Let us know what you think, and suggest some films for us to do, in the future. Until then, I’m Todd 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.