Guillermo del Toro has a remarkable filmography that has its roots firmly in the fantastic. And although he only recently obtained the prestige of the Oscars, he has spent his entire career chaining cinematographic odes to the most diverse subgenres of horror, fantasy and science fiction: from vampires to monster movies, passing through the kaiju eiga or ghost stories.
This last genre, which Del Toro had approached as early in his career as in the Spanish ‘El espinazo del diablo’, is approached with this ‘The Scarlet Summit’a gothic marvel that has just landed in Netflix although you also have it available on Prime Video. It is a proposal that despite its modest budget (barely 55 million dollars, a quarter of what a Marvel movie costs) is perfect for experiencing a few chills with the flavor of classic horror literature.
In it we are told how, as a result of a family tragedy, a writer is torn between safe romance and something sinister that awaits her in her marriage or the temptation of a stranger. A triangle (in reality, a quadrilateral, because there is a second woman in the running) that could star in a nineteenth-century soap opera, but that is shaken by a house with a terrifying past, disembodied and bleeding inhabitants.. Metaphorically and literally.
A fantastic cast led by Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain and Tom Hiddleston give poise and tragic sensitivity to a story that drinks from classic ghost stories like ‘Another Turn of the Screw’. And superb special effects (which skilfully mix traditional tricks and high-quality CGI) and spectacular production design (both the house and the specters themselves are marvelous) round out a proposal that is not among the best known of the director, but which deserves to be among his best works.
