THOR : RAGNAROK - Tuesday 31st October 2017.

'THOR : RAGNAROK' which I saw earlier this week, is the third film in the 'Thor' franchise and the seventeenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and has been much hyped, keenly awaited and highly anticipated since the first trailers were released and New Zealander Taika Waititi was announced for Directing duties. With a production budget of US$180M and filmed largely at Australia's Gold Coast film studios, the film has already received largely positive press, hailing it the best of the three so far, ahead of its US release in early November, and its Australian release last week. The first two films in the series, 2011's 'Thor' and 2013's 'Thor : The Dark World' were made for a combined US$303M and grossed between them close to US$1.1B, so expectations are running high for this instalment. The film has so far taken US$109M.

By way of a lesson into Norse mythology, Ragnarok is a series of future events, including a great battle, foretold to ultimately result in the death of a number of major figures (including the gods Odin, Thor and Loki), the occurrence of various natural disasters, and the subsequent submersion of the world in water. Following such a cataclysmic event, the world will resurface afresh, renewed and fertile, the surviving and returning gods will meet, and the world will be repopulated by two human survivors. This film then, is set four years after the events of 'Thor: The Dark World', and two years following on from 'Avengers: Age of Ultron'. As the film opens we find Thor wrapped in chains imprisoned on some far away planet by the fire demon Surtur (voiced by Clancy Brown and acted in MoCap by Taika Waititi) having unsuccessfully scoured the four corners of the universe for the Infinity Stones. In a comical opening scene we see Thor dangling by a chain deep within a cavernous cave taunting Surtur who tells him that his father Odin, has abandoned Asgard and that the realm will soon be destroyed in a foretold Ragnarok as soon as he is able to unite himself with The Eternal Flame that burns beneath the city of Asgard. Using his mighty hammer, Mjolnir, Thor is able to defeat Surtur and remove his crown, so preventing the apocalyptic Ragnarok . . . or so he thinks. Thor returns to Asgard.

On Asgard, Thor arrives to find Loki (Tom Hiddleston) posing as Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and therefore ruling over all of Asgard. Thor can see over Loki's ruse, and reveals his true identity to the people of Asgard. He also convinces Loki to help find his father. They travel to Earth and with the help of Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) they locate Odin hanging out in Norway. Odin explains to his sons that he is dying and has little time left. He further explains that with his passing, this will allow his first born daughter Hela, the Goddess of Death (Cate Blanchett) to be freed from prison where she was exiled to long long ago. Hela has at one time back in the dim and distant past been the leader of Asgard's almighty armies and with Odin they conquered the Nine Realms, and built Asgard to be the mighty civilisation it now is. But Hela got too big for her boots and became over ambitious, hence her imprisonment and being written out of the family history, to the extent that she was not even known of by Thor or Loki.

Odin dies and almost immediately Hela arrives. Hela commands that Thor and Loki kneel before her, but they refuse. Thor goes into battle mode determined to wipe his older sister from the face of the Earth, but she'll have none of it, for Hela is all powerful and in a show of strength stops Mjolnir at arms length and crushes it as though it were glass. Thor's hammer falls to the floor shattered into several chunks with Thor looking on in disbelief. At this Thor and Loki decide its time to get outta Dodge and summons the Bifrost Bridge to return them to Asgard. Hela pursues them and chases them through the wormhole overpowering them and causing the two brothers into space to supposedly perish and die, while she continues onto Asgard. She quickly asserts her power and single handedly wipes out the Asgardian army, resurrects the ancient dead with whom she once fought and who are buried deep within a secret vault below the castle, and appoints the new sentry of the Bifrost Bridge, Skurge (Karl Urban) as her new executioner. While Hela and Skurge are otherwise pre-occupied stamping their mark on Asgard, Heimdall (Idris Elba) who is in self imposed exile during Loki's reign, scales the mountainside and steals the sword that controls the Bridge, to prevent Hela from using the Bridge for her own empire building gain.

Meanwhile, Thor lands on the garbage planet Sakaar, and is immediately picked up by locals who are then overpowered by a lone mercenary and bounty hunter called Scrapper 142 (Tessa Thompson). She in turn overpowers Thor and drags him off to meet the planets immortal ruler, Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum) who runs a gladiator arena for the sport of the local population.

Grandmaster determines that Thor should fight in his Contest of Champions against his so far unbeaten champion prize fighter. After a brief introduction, a lesson in all things Sakaar, getting his golden locks shorn off by a Stan Lee cameo appearance and befriending a stone being named Korg (a laugh out loud Taika Waititi performance rendered in MoCap) as his only ally on the garbage planet, Thor is thrust into the arena to await his fate up against an all conquering foe that he does not yet know. Meanwhile, Loki has emerged too and has ingratiated himself to the Grandmaster and is living the free and easy life, unlike his now captive brother who tries to reason with him so that he can be set free too. But, Loki will have none of it!

As Thor readies himself under the spotlights of the arena, so he comes face to face with old buddy 'from work', Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). The pair clash in a brutal battle with Thor gaining the upper hand and almost defeating his old friend, before Grandmaster fixes the fight to guarantee Hulk's victory and to save face. Still held in captivity at the mercy of Grandmaster, Thor and Hulk, begin to reconcile their differences. Thor needs a plan and a Team to get back to Asgard, before Hela unleashes more death and destruction on Asgard and the Realms.

Thor tries to convince Hulk and Scrapper 142 to join forces and help him save Asgard and defeat Hela. They are not interested, even though he recognises Scrapper 142 as being one of the Valkyrie, a legendary force of female fighters who were all but wiped out trying to defend Asgard from Hela in days long since gone by. So Thor decides to go it alone using the Quinjet that bought Hulk to Sakaar two years previously. He breaks out of the Grandmaster's palace and gets to the Quinjet. Hulk follows behind where a recorded message on a monitor from Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) is the catalyst for Hulk turning back into Bruce Banner for the first time since the incidents at Sokovia two years previously.

Grandmaster orders that Scrapper 142 and Loki join forces to hunt down Thor and Banner, but the pair are hardly a match made in Heaven, and ultimately Scrapper 142 has a change of heart, takes Loki prisoner and agrees to join forces with the other two. Loki is however, reluctant to be left behind on the garbage planet now that he is a wanted man, and so he provides the group with the means to commandeer one of Grandmasters ships. They then set free the other gladiators led by Korg who stage a revolution.

Loki, being one not to be trusted, attempts to betray his brother but Thor can see through this, and immobilises him and leaves him behind. However, he is soon picked up by an unsuspecting Korg and the revolutionaries. Thor, Banner and Scrapper 142 escape through a giant wormhole known affectionately as the Devil's Anus, and arrive back on Asgard.

Upon arrival the three are confronted by Heimdall and the citizens of Asgard who are under siege by Hela, Skurge, their undead forces and a giant man eating hound that Hela has at her command. Banner transforms into Hulk again and with Scrapper 142 they fight Skurge and his forces, while Thor is off to see to unfinished business with Hela. Loki, Korg and the gladiators arrive aboard a giant ship having come through the Devil's Anus too. They join in the fight while the fleeing citizens of Asgard board the giant ship that will take them to someplace else, safe!

In his fight with Hela, Thor is overpowered and suffers stabbings, slashing and the loss of an eye. But theses mere scrapes do not deter him from the end game. In a moment of clarity, Thor has a vision of Odin, his father, that makes him see that only Ragnarok can defeat Hela. While Thor, Hulk and Scrapper 142 keep Hela distracted in battle, Loki sets off to retrieve the crown of Surtur and thrust it into the Eternal Flame, so resurrecting the fire demon bringing on Ragnarok to engulf all of Asgard and destroy Hela.

Thor and his crew board the giant ship with the now safe citizens of Asgard. Thor is crowned King, and when asked by Korg where to, he replies Earth, where perhaps he intends to rebuild Asgard. Watch out for the mid-credits scene and if you can wait it out until the final credits have rolled, there is a closing sequence featuring Grandmaster. The film also stars cameo performances from Matt Damon, Sam Neill and Liam Hemsworth (brother of Chris).

It is hardly surprising that Critics have heaped praise upon 'Thor : Ragnarok'. Whilst the film takes the 'Thor' movie franchise off in a new direction, and the MCU for that matter, the film retains many of the Thor touchstones including the action, the spectacle and the characterisation but freshens them up with a deadpan sense of humour, sarcasm, a wild ride and fun that is not out of place. For a hitherto little known New Zealand Director, Writer and Actor, Taika Waititi (whose previous credits include 'Boy', 'What We Do In The Shadows' and 'Hunt for the Wilderpeople'), what he has achieved here in his first big budget epic scale Hollywood picture is reinvigorate the Thor character and those around him, but reenergise the series and reestablish our faith in the MCU. Solid performances (if a little tongue in cheek at times), a good story, epic battles that are always preposterous but entertaining nonetheless, bold Direction and endless fun from start to finish - catch it on the big screen, and you won't be disappointed.

-Steve, at Odeon Online- 

KONG : SKULL ISLAND : Tuesday 14th March 2017.

I saw 'KONG : SKULL ISLAND' in the week. Wanting to catch a movie for which I could leave my brain at the door, I saw this offering in 3D because it was the only session that suited my timing. I wasn't disappointed by the first point, but I was for the second and maybe because 3D has been done to death now that it is no longer the novelty that it once was, and let me tell you 3D does little for this film beyond what you would expect. That said, the film does have other redeeming features.

In 84 years of film making history, 'King Kong' has featured countless times in live action and animated forms, in dramatic thrillers and cheesy send ups, on his own or battling some other equally menacing foe. 'King Kong' first mesmerised audiences back in 1933 by the remarkable stop-motion effects of Willis O'Brien, and a story that began on Skull Island, somewhere near Indonesia where as well as Kong, dinosaurs and giant insects also roamed the wild undiscovered landscape. In this origin story Kong is tracked down by filmmaker Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) and falls for Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) culminating in the classic closing sequence atop the Empire State Building from which Kong eventually falls to his death. On the strength of this film, 'Son of Kong' was immediately put into production and released later on in 1933. 'Mighty Joe Young' followed in 1949 also featuring Robert Armstrong, and remade in 1998 starring Bill Paxton and Charlize Theron. Then courtesy of Japanese cinema, came 'King Kong vs. Godzilla' in 1962 and 'King Kong Escapes' in 1967. 1976 saw the Dino De Laurentiis produced remake 'King Kong' and that same year the Brits released the send up of all King Kong movies with 'Queen Kong'. 'King Kong Lives' was released in 1986 and Directed by John Guillermin who also Directed the 1976 film. Peter Jackson delivered us 'King Kong' in 2005 with all the modern day cutting edge technical wizardry he could throw at his three time Oscar winning film that brought in US$550M at the global Box Office. And so in 2017 we have another King Kong offering Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, made on a budget of US$185M and starring an ensemble cast and featuring a raft load of special effects and filmed in northern Vietnam, Hawaii and on Australia's Gold Coast. It has so far taken US$163M, and has garnered generally positive Reviews.

Set in the early '70's a secret organisation called 'Monarch' locate an island that is shrouded in mystery and is said to contain several new species. That island is named 'Skull Island' because from the air the island resembles the shape of a skull in profile. Enter Bill Randa (John Goodman) who works for Monarch who sets up the expedition to go boldly where no man has gone before. He and colleague Houston Brooks (Corey Hawkins) - a young geologist, Yale University graduate and well known for his ground breaking work on seismology seek the funding support from Senator Willis (Richard Jenkins) who reluctantly gives it. In turn Randa and Brooks recruit James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) a former British Air Services Captain who saw time in Vietnam and who has a particular set of tracking and survival skills. Also hired is Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) who leads the Sky Devils helicopter squadron who have to chopper in the expedition team. And then there's Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) a pacifist photojournalist who has an affinity with nature and the environment.

Pretty soon, the team are assembled and are en route via cargo ship to Skull Island and into the unknown. They get their briefing, military style, and as they approach, the order is given to man the helicopters and negotiate their way through the islands own weather system which sees the island shrouded in thick storm clouds. For Packard and his team of hardened Vietnam War vets, this is a walk in the park, and what could possibly go wrong with a few lightning strikes and a little wet weather? How wrong could they be?

After successfully negotiating the surrounding storm front the fleet of choppers emerge into sudden clear blue skies, sunshine and lush tropical islands below - a picture of paradise lost! Randa and Packard give the order to Brooks to release the seismic charges and they detonate in the verdant forests below shaking the ground with explosion after explosion. This draws the attention of a certain giant bipedal ape the like of which no man has ever witnessed before, and one by one 'Kong' plucks the helicopters out of the sky, swatting them like flies and sending them crashing down to the dense forest floor below. Many are destroyed resulting in those that survived being split into two groups.

After burying their dead, the group containing Conrad, Weaver and Brooks and young Monarch biologist San Lin (Jing Tian) amongst a few others, stumble across a deserted ancient looking village. Venturing inside they are met with local Iwi natives and Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly) who was shot down over the island in a aerial dogfight 28 years earlier during WWII and has been on the island ever since despite his eight attempts to get of it. He has been befriended by the Iwi's, has lived with them all this time, and has learned a thing or two about the island, and it's giant animal life - friendly and harmless, and not so!

Marlow tells the group that Kong is the island's guardian and is worshipped as a god by the natives for protecting them from 'Skullcrawlers'. These reptilian underground lizard monsters slaughtered Kong's parents and ancestors, leaving him as the last of his kind. Marlow also tells them that Kong only attacked the helicopters to prevent the bombs from awakening the largest Skullcrawler, and therefore protecting the locals from it. After being welcomed by the Iwi who take the group back to their heavily fortified village (for protection from the Skullcrawlers, not Kong), and learning more of their culture and beliefs, the group head out on a motor boat that Marlow spent six years building out of salvaged parts from his WWII downed plane. In the meantime, Conrad has an up close and personal encounter with some of the wildlife present on the island!

Needing to reunite with the second group and rendezvous at a designated time with a resupply team in the islands north, Conrad and his group disembark their boat upstream in search for Randa, Packard and his men. They reunite, but Packard is insistent that they continue to search for missing right hand man, Jack Chapman (Tony Kebbell). Little do they know that Chapman was eaten by a Skullcrawler earlier on. Conrad leads the team into the 'Forbidden Zone' - a former battleground and now graveyard containing the skeleton remains of Kong's ancestors.

The Skullcrawler that killed Chapman emerges and attacks, devouring Randa in a moment of lost concentration as he played with his camera. Many of Packards soldiers are massacred too, before Weaver kills it by setting off an explosion. Packard blames Kong for the deaths of his men and wants vengeance. He retrieves seismic explosives from one of his downed helicopters to lure Kong into a trap and kill him using napalm.  Conrad in turn leads the non-military group back to the boat so they can rendezvous with the resupply team in time.

The groups now separated again, with Packard vowing to destroy the giant ape in a ball of fire, and Conrad working back to meet up with the boat. While out scouting the surrounding lie of the land to get their bearings from a high peak with which to look down, Conrad and Weaver come face to face with Kong. Sensing that Kong is not the bad guy here, they resolve to do what they can to save him, to which Marlow staunchly agrees. 

As Kong turns away from Conrad and Weaver his attention is grabbed by fires and explosions set by Packard to lure the ape out into the open, and engulf him in napalm flame. Packard is successful in bringing Kong down, but he's not out. Meanwhile a standoff ensues as Conrad and Weaver arrive at the scene just before Packard is about to butcher Kong once and for all, using more explosives. The group is attacked by the dominant Skullcrawler, giving Kong enough time to recover his senses and stand on his two feet. As Packard is set to detonate the explosives taking out Kong, so Kong stamps on him with his giant size 38 feet!

As Conrad, Weaver and Marlow seek their escape back to the boat and a waiting Brooks and Lin, they are pursued by the Skullcrawler. At which point Kong arrives to their aid, and an epic battle ensues between the two giant creatures. Kong prevails needless to say by ripping out the Skullcrawlers guts through its mouth at the end of its elongated forked tongue. The group make their getaway with Kong looking on, he then turns and walks away. 

In a post credits sequence, Conrad and Weaver are held in detention and interrogated by Monarch officials, and Skull Island expedition survivors Brooks and Lin in a bunker at some undisclosed location, watched from behind a one way window. Conrad and Weaver are told that Kong is not the only monster to roam the world, and are shown archive film of cave paintings depicting Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, and Ghidorah. This sets up the already announced Legendary Pictures 'MonsterVerse' and their planned May 2020 release of the 'Godzilla vs. Kong' film.

I enjoyed this film, but it is everything you would expect it to be. A simple somewhat implausible popcorn story that sees strong enough performances from the principle cast, but which are overshadowed by the special effects, the action set pieces, the enormity of Kong (delivered expertly though motion capture by Terry Notary), and the other creatures that share Kong's world. There is a high body count with bodies getting eaten, trampled on, thrown asunder and dismembered, and the film runs along at a solid pace without any melodramatic interludes. Sure 'Kong : Skull Island' stands tall in the pantheon of better 'King Kong' film fare in its 84 year history, but not tall enough to outshine its original predecessor. Worth a look on the big screen nonetheless.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

HIGH RISE : Friday 26th August 2016.

'HIGH RISE' which has had a limited release in Australia, I saw late last week and is based on the 1975 novel of the same name by J.G.Ballard. This Sci-Fi dystopian drama film is Directed by Ben Wheatley and is set in the time that the source novel was written. Produced by Jeremy Thomas of the Recorded Picture Company, who had wanted to turn this into a film since the '70's, and finally found a Director to do so in Wheatley, when the latter started looking at who held the film rights to the book back in early 2013. The film premiered at TIFF in September last year, opened in London in mid-March and arrived on Australian shores earlier this month having premiered at the Sydney Film Festival in June. For many years the book was said to be unfilmable, but then that was said too of Ballard's 1973 novel 'Crash' which was successfully made into a film by David Cronenberg in 1996 featuring James Spader and Holly Hunter. I guess you'll have to decide, but so far critics have been polarised by this one, and it's taken just US$4M.

As the film opens we are greeted by Dr. Robert Laing (Tom Hiddleston) in what seems to be his trashed apartment. He sits on the balcony looking the worse for wear with a white Husky dog, petting it, before killing it (off camera) and spit roasting it (in camera). We then go back three months in time and recount the steps to what led him to this day and this circumstance. Three months ago successful consulting neurologist Dr. Laing moves into the High Rise apartment block - a forty storey tower block on the edge of London that represents the epitome of modern living during the 70's. It is one of five, and the first to be commissioned.

On the upper floors live societies rich and elite, while on the lower levels reside more common middle classes. The upper levels offer its residents a gym, swimming pool, spa, supermarket, sculptured roof top gardens and a primary school giving residents no reason to leave other than for work. The apartments are fitted with the latest in design and modern conveniences. Laing has moved into an apartment on the 25th floor - he is alone. On the first day, Laing falls asleep on a recliner on his balcony in the sunshine, only to be looked down upon by a single mother neighbour living directly above him on the 26th floor, Charlotte Melville (Sienna Miller) who takes an instant attraction to the new kid on the block.

Sniffing around Melville like a dog on heat is Richard Wilder (Luke Evans) a documentarian film maker who lives on a lower level with his heavily pregnant wife Helen (Elisabeth Moss) and children. Laing gets to know Wilder and the two soon become friends as well. Wilder has a huge chip on his shoulder and begrudges those living on the upper levels, while he resides on the lower levels in a state of near chaos with a wife he can take or leave and a bunch of kids that he seems to tolerate. He is very much the dominant male and ready to pick a fight with anyone it seems.

Within a few days of taking up residence, Laing is summonsed to the upper penthouse level where lives the architect of the high rise development - acclaimed Anthony Royal (Jeremy Irons) with his wife Ann (Keeley Hawes). After an exchange of social niceties and an overview of Royal's philosophy behind his design for his iconic development, Laing is invited to an 18th Century costume party to be held on the rooftop in a few days time - a perfect excuse to meet his fellow neighbours.

In the meantime, working at a school of physiology Laing is cracking open a human skull in front of three students looking on. One student, Munrow (Augustus Prew) collapses when Laing peels back the facial mask and takes a saw to the skull. Fearful that Munrow may have sustained some head injury during his fall, Laing orders a brain scan as a precautionary measure. When the day of the costume party arrives, Laing attends but wearing business suit and tie and instantly is out of place with those others dressed a la 18th Century aristocracy. Laing discovers Munrow is in attendance and is in fact a resident of the high rise too, but is derided by Ann and other guests, including Munrow, and is promptly thrown out of the party for being non-conformist. Laing is shown to the elevator, and promptly gets trapped for several hours due to a power failure.

At a game of squash the next day between Laing and Royal, the architect simply dismisses the outage as the building settles, together with the water supply being shut off and garbage chutes becoming blocked . . . although such occurrences are becoming more frequent! A few days later, Laing meets with Munrow to give him the results of the brain scan, which have come back clear, but Laing tells him differently saying that they 'found something' in retaliation for being humiliated at the earlier party. Munrow is distraught by this news, and the next evening during another power failure which sees decadent drunken debauchery partying in the hallways and apartments, Munrow hurls himself off a balcony 39 storeys up, landing head first on the bonnet of a car below.

Wilder the next day finds it disturbing that the police never called to investigate the death of Munrow, and sets about making a documentary to expose the injustices of the high rise system, and how life within it has deteriorated so rapidly. Law and order within the building start to crumble at an alarming rate, as infrastructure begins to fail with ever increasing frequency and for prolonged periods of time. Tension between upper and lower levels begins to rise.

Violence and brutality are the new norm, the supermarket is ransacked down to the bare shelves, food becomes more scarce and sought after by the day and a class war fare breaks out between floors. Some residents try to barricade themselves into their apartments, while others go on the prowl robbing and killing anyone who gets in their way. Society soon breaks down within the high rise and it becomes survival of the fittest. Laing shows signs of remorse over the death of Munrow, and begins to become unhinged himself amidst all the carnage and chaos going on around him, to the point where he pummels someones face in over the last can of grey paint in the supermarket so that he can redecorate his apartment.

Wilder meanwhile is intent on getting to Royal and he sees the high rise designer as the architect of the chaos and break down of civilisation within it. Some of the upper floor residents including Royal see Wilder as a threat and try to coerce Laing into lobotomising him. Laing conducts a basic psychiatric test on Wilder and surmises that he is in reality probably the sanest man in the building and refuses. Wilder makes it to the penthouse level and in a scuffle shoots Royal dead. Wilder in turn is stabbed to death by Ann and a collective of upper level wives who have got together to establish a new world order within the high rise. This brings us back to that opening scene where a sense of calm is now descending on the high rise as power is restored and the violence has subsided. Helen gives birth to her child, and Laing and Charlotte lie in bed debating that what has happened within their high rise will undoubtedly occur in the second tower.

I can see why this film has divided critics. It is not an easy watch and won't be for everyone. Wheatley captures the tone of the '70's perfectly with its zeitgeist and pre-Thatcher era, and Hiddleston and Evans in particular seem to lavish in their unhinged, debauched and destructive roles as the previously pristine building and everything it stood for descends into a cluttered, grubby, bloody and lawless wasteland. This is not a happy film and it does not have an upbeat or optimistic ending either, but it is well delivered as a film set in the past and about a possible future seen when that future is now a reality and its past predictions are upon us.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

CRIMSON PEAK : Thursday 29th October 2015

The script for 'CRIMSON PEAK' which I saw in the week was written by Guillermo del Toro and Matthew Robbins and has been kicking around for ten years now, with del Toro always intending to Direct but he got sidetracked with 'Hellboy II', a small little project with Peter Jackson called 'The Hobbit' and then Sci-Fi epic 'Pacific Rim'. Having departed from 'The Hobbit' project del Toro was now free to re-divert his Directing and Producing attentions to his own penned story, and so in early 2014 set about filming what would become the Gothic Horror Romance 'Crimson Peak' with a US$55M budget. Released in mid-October the film has so far made US$52M.

As the film sets out it is 1887 and we see a young Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) aged about ten attending the funeral of her mother, comforted by her successful businessman father Carter Cushing (Jim Beaver). Returning to the family home that evening Edith is visited by the ghostly spectre of her dead mother warning her to 'beware Crimson Peak'. As quickly as those few words are mentioned so the spirit disappears.

Fast forward to 1901, and fourteen years later approaching her mid-20's Edith still lives with her single father in the family home and she has begun eeking out a career as a writer of ghost stories, much to the chagrin of her Publisher who would much rather see her pen romantic stories. Soon Edith is introduced to Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) a handsome debonair English Baronet who is seeking funding from Carter Cushing for his clay mining invention. Edith is quite taken with the dashing well spoken Englishman but much less so is her father who can see through his thin veneer, and his previous unsuccessful attempts to raise capital in Paris, Milan and Edinburgh for his frivolous mining exploits.

Shortly thereafter, alone in her bedroom researching Sir Thomas Sharpe, Edith is again visited by the ghostly spirit of her now long deceased mother bringing the same warning as fourteen years before 'beware Crimson Peak'. As time progresses so the relationship between Edith and Sir Thomas begins to blossom, much to the displeasure of Carter Cushing, who suspecting all is not quite what it seems orders a private investigation into the Englishman and his sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain). What is revealed is not good news and so Carter orders Sir Thomas and his sister to return to England and to turn his back on Edith promptly, while ensuring that her heart is broken in no uncertain terms and, paying them off with a handsome cheque to do so. 

Within a day or so Carter is viciously attacked while shaving and murdered at the hands of an unknown assailant. Having to positively identify the body Edith is accompanied to the morgue with childhood friend Dr. Alan McMichael (Charlie Hannam) who believes foul play is at work and not the accidental death that is being prescribed.

Free of an interfering and disapproving father, Edith and Sir Thomas quickly rekindle their love for each other and so they marry and return to 'Allerdale Hall' the ancestral home of the Sharpe family in Cumberland, England, miles from anywhere. This is a foreboding mansion that is run down, decrepit, desolate and in serious disrepair. There is a gaping hole in the roof that the wind, rain and snow blows through from several stories above the grand entrance hall. The house contains a labyrinth of dimly lit corridors; secret locked rooms; creaking walls; things that go bump in the night; and an ageing lift that goes down to a basement and the rich red oozing clay mine that the house stands on, and into which it is slowly subsiding. It must be said that del Toro has a very keen eye for the detail and the authenticity of his rich yet dark haunted house. The production values are first rate and he has left no stone unturned in capturing the Gothic menace and sense of dread contained within its four walls, which ultimately only add to the atmosphere he is seeking to instil.

Edith feels I'll at ease, but is made to feel reasonably comfortable on arrival by her new husband and his sister who seems to harbour more dark secrets than he does, although we know they are both on the same 'page'! As time progresses Edith has several encounters with a number of otherworldly spectres and ghosts who seem stranded within its four walls and whilst menacing, are trying to tell her something. Being a writer of ghost stories she has an understanding of such matters and whilst frightened, she seeks to learn more of the dark secrets of Allerdale Hall.

As Winter approaches Sir Thomas tells her that the rich red clay deposits on which the house stands seep through the snow turning it a crimson colour, which is why the locals refer to the house  as 'Crimson Peak' . . . words that she has heard of only before from her dead mother! Given what she has experienced so far, hearing those words again, suspecting too that all is not as it would seem with her husband and sister, having received word from home about the sale of the inherited family home, and discovering some recordings within the walls of the house that elude to a much darker secret, Edith begins to unravel the awful truth about who she has married, what the agenda is, and the bond that ties brother and sister.

All this heads to a climatic conclusion as Dr. Alan McMichael ventures to England, having also uncovered the Sharpes unsavoury history, in a bid to rescue Edith from a possible fate worse than death. Edith makes a connection with the ghostly apparition of a mother and her baby which points to another dark and disturbing secret being revealed and leads us into the final climax. As brother and sister become aware that Edith is on to them so rage, panic and jealousy set in and it all goes pear shape for Dr. McMichael, Sir Thomas, then Lucille and nearly Edith amidst the crimson coloured snow.

This film has a lot going for it - high production values, a strong principle cast, a Director and story teller who cut his Mexican teeth on horror fare of this type, and an old school rendition of the genre. But, despite these qualities I was left wanting. More scares, more frights, more jumps, and more things that went bump in the night - I was expecting more and on that note these came few & far between. In this respect this is similar to 'Pan's Labyrinth' which was a far superior offering but in a similar vein, just much more well executed. You don't need to see this on the big screen and can easily wait for the DVD, Blu-ray or download.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-