Crimson Peak: The Official Movie Novelization by Nancy HolderMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Great Novelisation
This book proved to not only to be as good as the film, but perhaps even better as it provides more detail that allows the horror to build, creating more suspense for the reader. The characters are more nuanced and there is a greater depth of emotion available to us as the audience. Well worth the read.
Crimson Peak is primarily the child of director Guillermo del Toro, who personally rates it as one of his best movies. Having watched it? I would probably list it equally with Pacific Rim, but that's my own personal choice. The movie follows young aspiring writer, Edith Cushing, as she meets, falls in love with, and eventually marries the handsome, quiet, and charming English baronet, Thomas Sharpe. She then moves from her home in Buffalo to Thomas' ancestral home in England where he lives with his elder sister, Lucille. From there... Well, I can't explain it without giving away some twits, turns, and amazing imagery. I had seen the movie prior to reading the book and was admittedly slightly skeptical of how the book would stand up to what I was sure would only work in a visual format. I am glad to say I was entirely wrong
Nancy Holder, an author who's work I was familiar with through novels relating to Buffy the Vampire Slayer primarily, manages to take what must have been an early shooting script and del Toro's extensive background notes. This novelization manages not only to keep the horror of the movie, but add to it with excellent descriptions of the ghosts that haunt Edith, and the evolution of the house itself as a dangerous entity, the feeling of which is present in the movie but made better use of in the book.
Learning more of the characters made the horrors somehow clench tighter in the stomach, and drove the pain of their actions that little bit further home. These are not just the characters you would expect to see in a horror - or even in a gothic romance, which is what Crimson Peak is - these are fully rounded people, with hopes and dreams and wishes that we can relate to. We can empathize with even the monsters of the story, and somehow that makes everything so much better, and so much worse.
It is one of those stories that I highly recommend everyone check out, though I should warn there is a fair amount of emotional abuse, domestic abuse, and straight out violence described in the story and visible in the movie. Those who are triggered by these may wish to avoid.
5 out of 5.
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