‘Crimson Peak’ is Streaming on HBO, If You’re Feeling Horny for Death

Crimson Peak is a film where nothing is as it seems. Guillermo del Toro’s homage to the gothic romance features gruesome ghosts acting as guardian angels, a charming aristocrat who is a deceitful con artist, and a cast of characters who are horny for death. Oh, yes, for all its bloody murders and creepy ghouls, Crimson Peak is a movie obsessed with sex. It argues that sex and death are inextricably linked, and that the allure of romance is in the fact that it’s doomed.

Crimson Peak is a 2015 film set during the dying days of the Victorian era. Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) is a bright American heiress and aspiring writer with a unique ability: she can see ghosts. That is, she recalls the horrifying specter of her mother visiting her as a child and warning her to beware “Crimson Peak.” Years later, she crosses paths with a mysterious British baronet named Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), and the two immediately are attracted to each other, much to everyone’s chagrin.

Thomas is in America because he wants Edith’s father (Jim Beaver) to invest money in an industrial machine of his own devising that is meant to extract the bloody red clay on his family’s land. However, Edith’s father mistrusts Sharpe and it turns out with good reason. A private investigator (Burn Gorman) uncovers proof that Sharpe and his sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain) murdered their mother as children, and that Sharpe has married a string of heiresses (who have died under mysterious circumstances). However, Edith doesn’t know this. She only knows that she’s horny for Thomas. So when Thomas makes a play to woo her, she eagerly agrees to marry him.

Most of Crimson Peak plays out in the dilapidated Sharpe family home, Allerdale Hall. It’s a horrific structure nicknamed “Crimson Peak.” While there, Edith starts to find herself haunted not just by the memory of her mother’s warning but by a series of a grisly ghosts. At first, it seems that Edith ought to be afraid of these specters, but as she pieces together the truth about Thomas and Edith, she realizes that they are trying to warn her about them.

The best part of Crimson Peak, though, isn’t the disgusting kill scenes or the sumptuous set design. It’s how damn horny this movie is. Essentially everything driving the plot comes down to sex. Edith makes a foolish choice and runs off to England with a poor baronet because she’s horny for him. Lucille is driven to murder, well, everyone because she’s so horny for her own brother. Charlie Hunnam’s noble Alan McMichael picks up the case after Edith’s marriage because he’s been burning for his childhood friend for so long. And the ending of Crimson Peak hinges on Tom Hiddleston’s sneaky baronet’s shifting affections. Upon meeting Edith, he finally feels pangs of attraction for someone who is not his insane sister.

Director Guillermo del Toro is no stranger to storytelling that examines the strange relationship between sex and the grotesque. After all, this is the man who wrote and directed an Oscar-winning film about a woman fucking a fish monster. However, he kind of outdoes himself in Crimson Peak. There’s a whole scene where Jessica Chastain pets Mia Wasikowska’s cheek with a dying butterfly that oozes with more eroticism than most porn. She then tosses the paper-winged creature into the dirt where it’s mounted by ravenous ants. She explains that fragile things are beautiful, and we all exist to die.

This sensual dance between love and death reaches a literal climax midway in Crimson Peak. At first, Edith is dismayed by the fact that she and her husband haven’t consummated their marriage. (She doesn’t realize that he’s promised Lucille he won’t sleep with any of his wives.) However, the two find themselves snowed in at a rustic depot and finally get to indulge their passion for each other. It is one of the most decadently shot sex scenes of the 2010s. The lighting is golden, the score passionate, and we get to see a Victorian heroine eagerly pull her husband’s pants down.

Crimson Peak might not have won the most awards in Guillermo del Toro’s film oeuvre, and it might not be his most successful film at the box office. However, it is a masterpiece about how horror and horniness are kind of the same thing.

Crimson Peak is now streaming on HBO.

Where to stream Crimson Peak