The 'Crimson Peak' Ending Is Crazy

When it comes to combining cinematic eye candy with fantastical storytelling, Guillermo del Toro is the master. His highly anticipated gothic horror film, Crimson Peak, adds to his resume of movies that transport audiences into different worlds that include demons fighting the forces of darkness (Hellboy), mythical woodland creatures (Pan's Labyrinth) and giant robots battling sea monsters (Pacific Rim). However, his latest film is a little bit different — although just as fun to watch. The ending of Crimson Peak , especially takes del Toro's resume to a whole new level.

Crimson Peak is grounded in humanity as much as a movie from the director can be. Mia Wasikowska plays Edith, an aspiring author who falls for Thomas (Tom Hiddleston), a mysterious inventor who comes into town. After tragedy strikes her family, she marries Thomas and goes off to live with him and his cold, peculiar sister, Lucille (Jessica Chastain), at a crumbling estate that is as beautiful as it is creepy. Edith tries to settle into her new domestic life, but it proves to be difficult when ghosts are figuratively and literally haunting her. Plus, her new sister-in-law isn't exactly welcoming. When all is said and done, how Crimson Peak ends is, for the most part, a satisfying conclusion to the story. Even so, Del Toro will likely leave you with a couple of lingering questions. (Spoilers ahead!)

At the movie's end, audiences find out that Thomas and Lucille were trying to take Edith's inheritance from her father's death to keep their estate. They've tried to do this with other women that Thomas married before, but failed. So they killed these ladies, explaining why the house is haunted, and before that, they killed their abusive mother. To add to the craziness, the brother and sister are in an incestuous relationship, a detail in the movie that will definitely have people gasping. Thomas actually loves Edith and wants all of this madness to end. There's a lot going on here; it's like a Shakespearean tragedy, with Crimson Peak being basically 60 percent love story, 40 percent horror.

Yet in the case of the conclusion, Crimson Peak totally fits the horror genre — the ending doesn't really mean the story's over. The door is always open for a continuation of the tale, and in del Toro's case, he leaves that possibility wide open, toying with the idea of a sequel. After Alan is stabbed in an attempt to rescue Edith and an obsessive Lucille kills her brother, Edith offs the sister in a very bloody knife fight that will make people squirm. In the end, Edith and an injured Alan walk away from the haunted house in the blistering snow. Thomas and Lucille's physical bodies are dead, but their ghosts and the house are still very alive — one of the last shots shows a macabre Lucille playing the piano. These siblings aren't going anywhere soon.

Speaking of, I'd like to take a moment and give props to Jessica Chastain, who wins MVP of this movie. I throughly enjoy a frigid, psychopathic character, and when an actor plays it with nuance and commitment, they deserve special recognition. You can tell that Chastain had fun playing Lucille. Any other actor would have just played her as a one-dimensional crazy person, but Chastain progressively developed the character's insanity in every scene she was in, ending with a glorious explosion of insanity.

One of the major questions that I had after watching the movie was regarding Edith's relationship with her dead mother. She is visited by the not-so-friendly ghost of her mom, who tells her to "beware of Crimson Peak." The unofficial name of Thomas and Lucille's estate is Crimson Peak, but how did her mom know to warn her about that? I may have missed something, but this was never really addressed. There has to be more story behind that.

Crimson Peak leaves viewers with a minor cliffhanger that is satisfying enough to end the film, but open enough to start a haunting franchise, if that's in the works. Del Toro is no stranger to sequels; he made a follow-up and is rumored to be making a third installment of Hellboy, and a sequel to Pacific Rim has also been announced, but Crimson Peak is a wild card. I, for one, wouldn't mind seeing Lucille haunt Edith some more.

Image: Legendary Pictures and Universal Pictures