Crimson Peak: A Metaphor For Healing
My first watch of Crimson Peak was a bit underwhelming. I enjoyed the horror elements and the visuals were fine, but it seemed like an average movie. Upon my second viewing, I noticed many elements that were previously hidden, and the overarching message of the story finally made sense: Crimson Peak is a metaphor for not allowing one’s self to heal.
Thomas and Lucille Sharpe (played by Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain respectively) grew up with a squandering father and cruel mother leaving them and their ancestral home deeply scarred. Having never felt true love, the siblings fall in love with each other and begin a taboo relationship.
Instead of letting themselves move on and seek opportunities to be loved, they cling to their family’s home and clay mine. Because of this, Thomas schemes with his sister to marry rich women and have them killed once he has their fortunes.
The two have never allowed themselves to be repaired and move on from this trauma. It’s a theme that is best explored in the film through its use of color.
The Sharpe home is the most obvious use of color in this metaphor. It is dilapidated, containing holes in the roof which allow in snow, and is sinking into the clay mines below it. On top of this, the red clay oozes down the walls like a bleeding wound.
The house hasn’t been repaired because all of the ill-gotten money goes towards Thomas’ clay harvesting machinery. Its injuries continue to bleed (clay) because they never received the care to have them properly healed.
The ghosts of the Sharpes’ murdered wives share the red pallet, and similarly to the house, appear decayed and broken. Thomas and Lucille also wear primarily blue throughout which could be seen as representative of their emotional bruising from a traumatic childhood.
Why all of these colors persist is because of the film’s overall message: refusing to heal from trauma makes the pain continue.
What makes Edith different from the other wives is that Thomas is allowed to be intimate with her away from his home and his sister. Due to a blizzard, he is forced to develop interact with Edith away from the reminders of his past life and he finds that he can fall in love. She even notes “you’re always looking to the past, but you won’t find me there. I’m here.”
Edith primarily wears yellow like she is a light that will bring Thomas out of the dark. Her affection and kind nature will eventually wipe away the blood and bruises from Thomas’ pallette. However, this does not work for his sister.
Lucille, still clinging to her love for her brother, can’t accept that Thomas might leave her after finally finding love in someone else. She doesn’t want to heal because she’s afraid of being alone and assumes she will not find love in anyone else.
She thinks “beautiful things are fragile” so she has no other options. On the other hand, Thomas realizes that Lucille and his actions have kept them from moving on.
Enraged, she kills Thomas when he defends Edith. When Edith finally vanquishes Lucille, Thomas’ ghost appears before her, but with a notable difference.
Unlike the previous ghosts who have been grotesque and crimson, Thomas is fully clothed and white. His face looks like he’s finally found peace, thus allowing him to escape becoming another specter of the wounded home.
This film demonstrates how the damages from one’s past are like ghosts haunting us. In Edith’s closing monologue, she explains how, sometimes, these ghosts cling to emotion and never go away.
Instead of exercising them, Thomas and Lucille learned to live with the ghosts and therefore, kept those wounds continually alive and fresh. It’s why the house remained wounded and bleeding and why the siblings couldn’t move on.
According to Crimson Peak, the only way to truly heal is to accept what made the wound and allow it to begin closing.
