Crimson Peak Itch

While I’m sure what anyone who reads this blog is probably really wondering about is: when will Stories Live! return and how am I coping with the recent loss of my mother. Or maybe I’m not coping. Maybe I’ve just lost my mind. That would be even more entertaining, right? Stories Live! will return in a modified format in 2024. As far as how I’m coping goes, it has been hard to write or even read anything. Those two activities tend to make me happy, so I’m kind of miserable and I feel like I’m behind on all of my creative projects and my obligations to Netgalley.

I have been watching a lot of comfort movies, and now that I’m out of most of those, I’ve been trying to branch out, but it’s so hard to cope with movie disappointment. I can’t dismiss “that’s two hours of my life I’ll never have back” so casually right now.

I didn’t anticipate it being so difficult to find something similar to Crimson Peak that I haven’t already seen. In fact, I haven’t succeeded yet. Being the weird person I am, I thought, surely other people must be having the same problem. So I decided I’d blog about it.

Here’s one big problem: Gothic is a tough genre to get right because it can get silly so fast. So much about the genre is over the top, as it should be. Exotic locales. Crazy stupid love affairs–possibly with family members. Explicit lusting. Awe inspiring mansions and castles that might be past their prime. Deep and terrible family secrets. You know: a mix of horror and melodrama. Oh yes, and ghosts. Very active ghosts.

For a more authoritative top 10 elements of Gothic horror, check out this blog post.

The thing about that post is it focuses on literature. Yes, I love books, and yes, a lot of the Gothic horror films and mini series are based on books. Movies are a different medium with different opportunities though. In a book, psychological terror is the most powerful tool in the writer’s arsenal. In a movie, that comes through too, but more from striking visuals and sound.

While Gothic novels like Frankenstein and Dracula refer to blood and bodily fluids quite a bit, the color red isn’t used as much as it is in Crimson Peak. The composition of the soil beneath and around Allerdale Hall in Crimson Peak is red and seeps through everything, dripping everywhere and staining everything the way the family is stained by sin. By contrast, Dracula and Frankenstein leave the color to the reader’s imagination and that’s fine because I know whatever I come up with is often worse than what someone could show me.

One big problem I have with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the film, is they do use blood and the color red a lot, but it becomes more comical than anything else. Also, the explicit sex even gets silly. The same is true in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. (While I’m at it, I think that Young Frankenstein is actually a better adaptation of her novel even if it is a comedy.)

Another recommendation for a watch-a-like that I found online was We’ve Always Lived in the Castle. We have a manor in disrepair, a family under a “curse” or at least viewed as cursed, an incestuous love story, and someone who appears like a damsel in distress. I think the true damsel in distress might actually be uncle Julian Blackwood, but hey, why not mix it up a little. Does it hit the spot for me? Not really. I enjoy it and will give it the Gothic check, but it’s not a watch-a-like for Crimson Peak.

Another candidate is Awakenings. In Awakenings, we have strong supernatural elements with the haunting of a boy’s school. The themes of abuse and exploitation are strong as well as the scars they leave behind. The setting is atmospheric, creepy, and gorgeous. There’s a strong romantic element. Damsel in distress? Not so much, but that’s okay. I think this is a strong contender, but I’ve seen it several times before.

I haven’t watched the latest installment in the Flanaverse, The Fall of The House of Usher. I suspect that it will be perfect, but it’s also more of an investment than a two hour or less feature film.

Will check out the watch-a-likes I found with a Google search and some of the recs on this Reddit thread. Let me know what your top picks would be!