I’ve got another contemporary review for you this week. In the spirit of the season, my boyfriend and I saw Crimson Peak on opening night – that is, the Thursday night premier. Maybe sometime I’ll talk about why I think Thursday night premiers are ridiculous, but right now I want to talk about the film. To say that I completely adored every tiny minute detail about Crimson Peak would quite possibly be the greatest understatement in the history of colossal understatements.

Where do I even begin with Crimson Peak? I think, first of all, it’s important to note that it is not a horror film. A character in the film remarks about her novel, when it is ridiculed for being a ghost story, “It’s not a ghost story. It’s a story with ghosts in it.” The same is true of the film. It is not a ghost story, and it is not a horror movie; it is a story with ghosts and horror in it. Rather, Crimson Peak is a gothic romance – gothic, like Dracula or Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

When I took a tour of a gothic cathedral in Spain a few years ago, the tour guide informed me that the word “gothic” traditionally meant “giving glory to God.” A quick search revealed that this is not the case, but I do vastly prefer my guide’s explanation. According to him, gothic cathedrals were built and designed in a style meant to ascend to the heavens and both be aesthetically pleasing to God and man and to make people recognize God’s majesty. Gothic later came to be used to describe all similar architecture, and from there it became an aesthetic at large and a “period” in art. The history of this is accurate, even if the etymology is not. Currently, gothic art is described as being “characterized by a tendency toward realism and interest in detail.” Gothic literature, more specifically, is “characterized by a gloomy setting, grotesque, mysterious, or violent events, and an atmosphere of degeneration and decay.” (Thanks, Dictionary.com!)

So that’s gothic at large. In a gothic romance in particular, a typically innocent girl falls in love with a man about whom there is an air of mystery or danger. The other characteristics still stand, of course, but this key point about the “damsel in distress” is especially pertinent to Crimson Peak.

I don’t want to give too much away, but Guillermo del Toro took all of the classic gothic romance tropes and crystallized them into the purest form I’ve ever seen (admittedly I only made it about halfway through Bram Stoker’s Dracula before I bookmarked my page forever and moved on to other novels) and still managed to put an interesting spin on them. He stayed true to the genre while making it fresh. It’s sexy, freaky, touching, disturbing: everything a gothic romance should be.

Crimson Peak is everything a good film should be, period. The story is tight, with no plot holes that immediately come to mind. The mise-en-scene is appropriately moody and laced with so much symbolism that I don’t think I’ll catch it all even after a tenth viewing. The acting is all-around excellent, except some minor moments by Mia Wasikowska that don’t quite live up to her costars. The ghosts are an amazing piece of cinema in their own right; although, if you’re a paranormal expert, you may have some issues with the visual presentation of one ghost in particular. (This was actually the source of a minor argument between myself and my boyfriend. He says the character of her spirit should not have rendered her in such a way. I say it was a choice made both to fit in with Guillermo del Toro’s personal auteur style and related to the manner in which she died. We tabled it after ten minutes of very heated discussion. Let us know what you think in the comments.)

On the subject of my boyfriend, at the risk of embarrassing him, I’d like to point out that he doesn’t like horror movies. He was very reluctant to see Crimson Peak with me; I all but dragged him on the grounds of “But my free movie ticket expires tonight!” But even he enjoyed the film. In fact, he volunteered this information, rather than me having to drag his opinion out of him. He even said he’d be willing to see it again. So even if all my rambling about how it’s-not-a-horror-film-it’s-a-gothic-romance wasn’t enough to convince you that it’s really not too bad jump-scare-wise, take his word for it.

Admittedly, there are moments of surprise, of “holy crap that wasn’t there two seconds ago!” But in classic del Toro style, the suspense builds from there. The sudden movement or appearance of a ghost isn’t what is meant to frighten you. Yes, you’ll jump, but the real scare comes from the building suspense of the continued whatever-it-is. If you’ve seen El laberinto del fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth) you know exactly what I’m talking about.

I find that I’m plagued by so much affection for this film that I have nothing to say about it. All that comes to mind is “Go see it, it’s absolutely amazing, YOU WON’T REGRET IT, IT’S SO GOOD.” But that isn’t of much use to you. So instead, I’ll leave you with this parting observation. Halloween is my favorite day of the year, and lately I haven’t been feeling into it. But Crimson Peak put me back into the spirit of Halloween utterly and completely and with a renewed fervor I haven’t felt since I was a child. It’s well worth a watch, and a second and a third. It might just be the best film I’ve seen all year.