Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak is more than just a gothic horror film; it is a haunting meditation on imperfection, idolatry, and the destructive nature of obsessive love. With imagery drawn from Victorian ghost stories and Gothic romance, the movie explores themes of moral decay, the cycle of abuse, and the imprisonment of the soul in sin and self-loathing. As a Christian viewer, Crimson Peak offers not only eerie ghost story elements but also profound parallels to the dangers of self-criticism, self-worship, and the ultimate redemption that comes only through God’s love and grace.

Crimson Peak as Gothic Romance and Ghost Story

Crimson Peak is an eerie ghost story told in a way reminiscent of old horror films and Victorian novels. As I finished listening to its director’s commentary, Del Toro struck me with one of his statements: “Imperfection is an altogether attainable human goal,” and “Love is [the] acceptance of imperfections.”

The reason that line stood out to me amid all the others is that this year for Lent, I gave up “self-criticism.”

Some might argue that without self-criticism, we cannot be humble, and that is true, but I also suggest that self-criticism is self-worship, through self-loathing. In hating myself, I commit the dual sins of turning myself into an idol (to which I devote much negative time, energy, and emotion) and of criticizing God’s artwork (me, as a spiritual being).

My imperfections result from living in an imperfect world; God intends me to be a masterpiece. I am tarnished, but still His work of art, and He will one day complete me in the fullness of time. I need neither to hate myself in my current fallen state nor to strive for perfection even if I drive myself hard to do the latter. I should neither self-worship through exalting myself nor offend God through excessive self-loathing.

People choose all kinds of idols to worship… to love or hate, but an idol is that which preoccupies the mind such that it removes focus from God onto a person, object, thought, or belief. An idol can be of flesh and blood, of carved stone, of paper, but it is that to which much time and energy is devoted.

The Haunted House as Symbol of Moral Decay

In Crimson Peak, Thomas is an idol to his sister, Lucille, who inevitably destroys him because her obsession is selfish, sick, twisted, and controlling. In Gothic Romance, the house represents the moral decay of a character, and here, this house and Lucille are entwined, so much a part of one another that they breathe together. As Lucille steps away from her constraint and control, the house “bleeds,” the moths stir, and violence escalates. Her poisonous love has trapped Thomas as an eternal child, a boy lost in the attic, still creating toys for his sister… beautiful, complex toys that show the state of his emotional arrested development; he engages in sexless marriages for money to please his sister, and while his pristine toy machine is exquisite, the real one is a hideous monstrosity… rather like how his childish submission to his sister has allowed her to become a hideous human being, a monster without conscience, because he never tried to stop her. His lack of willpower enables her to become a twisted version of Self. His sin generates her sins, and her sins cause him to sin, showing an endless negative cycle of abuse.

The house can also represent Purgatory: a hellish, surreal world neither present in reality nor entirely outside it, whose occupants become more and more unsuitable to live in the outside world the longer they remain there. They start out as humans who are murdered, then transform into half-decayed ghosts, moaning as they crawl about the corridors. They become less human over time, forever trapped in a miserable state, being fed upon by the house. Crimson Peak is a hopeless place in a state of increasing decay. It is cold, dark, and full of ghostly presences, the lingering remnants of its many sins echoing in distant corners.

Lucille, Thomas, and the Cycle of Abuse

The novelization goes a step further in stating that the house is a living, breathing, evil force that grows in power and delight each time a murder is committed inside its walls. That forces us to ask, did the house generate the darkness that warped the Sharps, or has their continued bloodshed, and Lucille’s sick pleasure in murder, corrupted the house? Which came first, as the catalyst for the other, or did they grow together, feeding off one another’s powerful evil energy? Is it the moral decay of the souls in it, and the misery of its ghosts, that has eaten away at the innards of the house, or is it living in that dank, oppressive, hellish place that drove Lucille insane?

Crimson Peak’s occupants could not afford to keep it up, but even if they could, to do so would have preserved the dark memories of that house: of unhappy childhoods, of a father reckless with money and violent, of an abusive and controlling mother. After their removal, after being sent away after her death, they had an opportunity to start a new life elsewhere… but they were drawn back to the house, to the state of unhappiness, to reminders of their former actions, to repeat old sins endlessly in a circle of violence… and to be miserable in its midst, a propagating cycle of abuse and murder for Lucille, and self-loathing for Thomas.

It is only in Edith’s acceptance of him, her love for him despite his imperfections, that he finds freedom in loving her in return and can strive to become his True Self. But because he has no support, he cannot save himself.

I cannot save myself; it is Christ’s love for me, despite my imperfections, that saves me. I cannot go forth and become my True Self on my own; I need Him to draw me from the brokenness of my imperfections, from the shame of my former mistakes, from the guilt of my sins, and set me free.