“If you watch the movie carefully, the colors…they’re telling you a story. It’s not just beautiful, it’s storytelling.”
Guillermo Del Toro
Directed by Guillermo del Toro, Crimson Peak surprised audiences when it first debuted in October 2015. While many expected a standard horror film, the movie felt more like a 19thcentury Gothic Romance. Audience reactions were mixed, but no one could deny that Crimson Peakwas absolutely stunning.
The setting — a dilapidated Victorian mansion — reflects the sheer opulence of a bygone era, and functions as a character in and of itself. This effect is compounded by the use of audio. While the mansion creaks and groans under the weight of its history, the beginning scenes in an industrialized America resound with the sound of machinery and a fast-paced lifestyle. Every aspect of the film was conceived and executed with deliberation, especially the use of color regarding lighting, setting, and wardrobe choices.
According to “Mastering the Movie Color Palette: Guillermo Del Toro” by Matt Vasiliauskas, this isn’t a particularly surprising move for the director, who “is not afraid of bright, intense colors. He’s particularly fond of primary colors, and very few of Guillermo del Toro movies can be found without his signature reds, blues, and yellows” (Vasiliauskas n.p.).
When viewing Crimson Peak, it quickly becomes apparent that the use of color has been carefully controlled and used to further multiple aspects of the story. Utilizing a triadic color scheme of gold, blue, and red, Guillermo del Toro was able to highlight the clash between the Old World and the New, communicate death and danger, and illustrate character arcs.
Note:Throughout multiple interviews, Guillermo Del Toro refers to the blue/green color as greenish blue, blue, and cyan. This surprised me as I thought of it as simply green. For the sake of consistency, I will refer to this color as blue unless using a direct quote.
The Color Crimson 