Introduction
When I came home I had a big speech ready in my head to share with my roommate. I delivered it somewhat poorly, having forgotten the script that I had planned to perform, but managed to conveyed the gist of my impression of the film. My roommate caught me off-guard with an unexpected question: "Would you watch it again?"
I had to think about it. I said no at first, then amended that I might watch it again with someone else so I could complain about it. This essay is an example of the latter.
Crimson Peak (2015) is a film deeply intertwined with gothic romance and tragic fiction that echoes various notable classics. Although it attempts to be a kind of feminist film, it ultimately fails to do so, reducing women into good and evil stereotypes.
Firstly, let's begin with the intertexuality of the film. The stories that literally came to mind as I watched the film are recognizable texts, all publications over 160 years old. The three texts I will be examining are, Shakespeare's Macbeth, Charlotte Brontèˆ's Jane Eyre, and the Charles Perrault edition of "Blue Beard". All three have different forms and are labelled as different genres. Macbeth is a tragic play. Brontèˆ's Jane Eyre is a gothic romance novel. "Blue Beard" is considered both a folktale and a fairytale and is a short story. Furthermore, Crimson Peak is a film and all the texts selected are print texts. Comparing across these forms is difficult as each form, from short stories to novels, and play scripts to film, shapes the text. What these texts do have in common is that they all are centrally concerned with the aristocratic married couple in a extravagant building (mansion or castle) and repeated marriage or murder (or both), as well as the secrecy and deception involved for either.