海角大神

The upcoming film 鈥淐rimson Peak鈥� arrives on Oct. 16, only a couple of weeks before Halloween, and is set in a spooky house that seems to have a lot of secrets.聽

So does it matter that some critics are saying they weren鈥檛 frightened by the film?

So far, many reviewers have praised the look of the movie, which stars actress Mia Wasikowska as author Edith Cushing and Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain as Edith鈥檚 new husband and sister-in-law, respectively. But while previews have eerie music and depictions of spooky creatures, writer Chris Nashawaty says the film 鈥渇orgets to be scary,鈥� writer Peter Debruge says there are 鈥渧acancies where the scares should be,鈥� and writer Peter Bradshaw wrote that he is 鈥渓ess convinced by [director Guillermo Del Toro's] Halloweeny ghosts鈥� than by other aspects of the film.聽

What do the lack of over-the-top scares mean for the status of 鈥淐rimson Peak鈥� as a Gothic romance? The standards of the genre, to which works like Daphne du Maurier鈥檚 鈥淩ebecca鈥� and Charlotte Bront毛鈥檚 鈥淛ane Eyre鈥� also belong, are seen in 鈥淐rimson.鈥� The set-up of a young woman being newly married and being brought to a spooky house by a husband who seems to have secrets is 鈥渆xactly in line with the Gothic framework,鈥� says Dinah Ryan, who teaches a course on the Gothic novel at Principia College in Elsah, Ill.聽

Would another Gothic romance have big scares? Ryan says the lack of them in 鈥淐rimson鈥� makes sense for the genre. 鈥淭he Gothic has the supernatural in it often,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut the Gothic isn鈥檛 really frightening in the sense that a ghost story is frightening鈥� it鈥檚 more of a psychological haunting.鈥澛�

But how will the reported lack of scares affect moviegoers鈥� opinion of the movie or its appeal for casual viewers? Ryan says that many of her students are familiar with the trappings of the genre even if they don鈥檛 think they know it well, just because the conventions have been featured so often in pop culture. She says she hasn鈥檛 seen the movie but that because the Gothic genre can seem over-the-top to some, 鈥減eople may not respond to that鈥� with 鈥淐rimson,鈥� she says.