Guillermo del Toro might be an Academy Award winning filmmaker with statues for Best Picture and Best Director under his belt, but the man loves genre. The Shape of Water may have been a prestige drama that dominated the awards season circuit, but at the end of the day, it was still a fantasy about a woman who falls in love with a fish-man, which sits comfortably in del Toro’s wheelhouse.
Indeed, every single entry in his filmography involves genre in some fashion whether it’s horror, sci-fi, fantasy, Gothic romance, or as has been the case several times, a combination of them all. Even the movies that he never got around to actually making like The Hobbit, At the Mountains of Madness, Justice League Dark and countless more all saw him toying with the same core concepts.
One of del Toro’s many passion projects was Crimson Peak, which found him mounting a lavish period piece laced with supernatural tension, doomed lovers and plenty of things that go bump in the night. It may have bombed at the box office after earning less than $75 million on a $55 million budget, but it drew strong reviews from critics before finding new life as a cult favorite.
Netflix subscribers can enjoy seeing Mia Wasikowska’s Edith marrying Tom Hiddleston‘s Sir Thomas Sharpe and watching their relationship quickly unravel in the face of sinister secrets, dark forces and his troublesome sister Lucille now that Crimson Peak has been added to the library. It’s best to watch this one with the lights off if you’re feeling brave enough, and it definitely stands a decent shot at cracking the Top 10 list by the end of Sunday.
