Analyzing the color motifs in Crimson Peak
One of the reasons I decided to pursue a career in film grading is because I’ve always been so inspired by movies that use color motifs to add a deeper layer to their storytelling. Of course, Colorists don’t choose the color motifs and what each color will symbolize in a film. However, they can certainly work with a director to emphasize those colors and make sure the Director’s vision and their chosen color story is being clearly communicated to the audience.
Crimson Peak is my all time favorite movie for many reasons. It’s a feminist love letter to classic gothic storytelling that modernizes the genre by subverting many of its tropes. Every single shot of this movie is filled to the brim with so much eye protein that it takes multiple viewings to fully see and appreciate every piece of furniture, the jewelry and fabrics of the costumes, and even the hidden messages and designs in the wallpaper.
However, one of the biggest reasons why Crimson Peak is my favorite is the way it’s completely masterful in how it uses color to add a deeper layer to its storytelling.
I’m going to break down the main colors Crimson Peak features and how they are used to represent characters, emotions, and even continuously foreshadow the final villain. If you haven’t seen Crimson Peak yet, I highly recommend you do as there will be spoilers ahead!
A timeless color scheme
Crimson Peak uses the three primary colors — yellow, blue, and red — to represent each one of the three big forces in the film: Edith, the Sharpes, and violence/death, respectively. Primary colors are “foundation” colors, which means you can mix those colors to make other colors, but you can’t mix anything to create them. This is the classic complementary color scheme, so right away it elicits a classical and timeless feeling. In fact, Guillermo del Toro loves to use this color scheme in all of his movies. Next time you watch Pan’s Labrynth, Pacific Rim, Hellboy, or The Shape of Water, pay attention to the use of red, yellow, and blue in each.
Not only is this color scheme a director trademark, but also — once we understand what these colors represent specifically in Crimson Peak — it’s fun to pick up on the really clever foreshadowing throughout the story.
Now, let’s begin the deep dive.
Our Golden Heroine
Edith is the golden heroine of our story, not only in her personality but also in her appearance. She wears almost exclusively yellows and creams and even her hair is golden blond. Yellow also represents her home in America, which provides her with warmth, safety, and familiarity. Typically, yellow is used to convey hope, happiness, and energy, but it also is a color that can be used to communicate visibility and caution. This is very fitting for Edith’s character journey as she’s a romantic optimist that constantly receives — and ignores — caution from everyone closest to her to stay away from the Sharpes.
I absolutely love how the Colorists on Crimson Peak pushed these color motifs in their grading. Not only is Edith almost exclusively dressed in yellows, but all the scenes in America are graded in a way that is very warm leaning. So much, in fact, that all these scenes practically look sepia toned. All of Edith’s friends and family are dressed in creams, browns, and yellows, and even the lighting has a distinct warmness to it. Not only does Edith blend in here because this is where she belongs, but also subconsciously we are supposed to feel safety in this place as Edith does.
By contrast, when Thomas and Lucille are visiting America they are usually wearing black, which really emphasizes their strangeness and mystery. They essentially always look like dark shadows against the warmness of their surroundings.
The Sharpes and blue
Blue is the color of the Sharpe siblings and Allerdale Hall itself. While they wear mostly black in America (with one exception which I will get to below), as soon as they arrive back to their home in Allerdale Hall they wear exclusively blue. Blue is typically used to communicate intelligence, sadness, and loyalty. The saying goes “true blue” after all, and Thomas and Lucille absolutely take loyalty to new, disturbing levels. It’s also interesting to note that blue and yellow are opposites on the color wheel, yet again reminding us that Edith and the Sharpes are opposing forces.
When Edith moves to Allerdale Hall, the main color palette has completely changed. Instead of every shot being drenched in warm yellows, now everything is cold blues. Compare the first shot of America with the first one of Allerdale Hall. This change from a yellow tint to a blue tint is absolutely beautiful and subtle work by the Colorists.
Even Edith herself is wearing a new coat accented by purples and blues in her first outfit upon arrival to her new home, with only the slightest bit of her yellow dress underneath peeking through. After her initial arrival though, Edith is back to wearing yellow dresses and an iconic cream nightgown each night as she roams the halls trying to understand the messages from her ghostly roommates.
I absolutely adore every scene in Allerdale Hall. Between her golden hair and clothes Edith is constantly standing out against the suffocating blues. She’s the literal and metaphorical light in the darkness.
By contrast, the Sharpes are also literally and metaphorically concealed in shadow. Some scenes it’s even difficult to see them while they are drenched in the blue moonlight. In fact, the color blue used in the fabric for Lucille and Thomas’ clothing was color matched to the blue paint used on the Allerdale Hall set, which is a brilliant decision that really hammers home that they are both a part of the house and are so deeply intertwined with it and it’s history.
The violence of red
Red is commonly associated with violence, death, and danger. In Crimson Peak, red is shown whenever an object, person, or ghost is connected to death and violence. Red is also a color that we commonly associate with love and romance, so the presence of red in Crimson Peak so perfectly to represents the twisted love of the Sharpes:
“The things we do for love like this are ugly, mad, full of sweat and regret. This love burns you and maims you and twists you inside out. It is a monstrous love and it makes monsters of us all.”
Red is also used as a foreshadowing tool to alert us of impending danger throughout the story.
When we are first introduced to Lucille, she is wearing a crimson gown. This is the first instance of red in the movie so that should get our attention. This is literally a red flag that del Toro is waving, telling us that Lucille is Bad News.
As an aside, I could write a whole separate post about this dress honestly. The way the skirt looks like a pool of blood, the twisted ribbons look like bones sticking out of an emaciated body, and the overall shape and structure giving her a look that is both gorgeous and deadly is just brilliant costume design by Kate Hawley.
Continuing on as we follow the color red, Edith’s red wedding ring was acquired by the violent murder of Thomas and Lucille’s mother. When Edith (and as we find out Thomas’ previous wives) wear it, they are essentially marked for death and are gradually poisoned by Lucille when they move into Allerdale Hall. At the end of the movie, Lucille rips the ring away from Edith’s finger and puts it on herself. This foreshadows Edith’s survival and how Lucille ultimately meets her end at the, uh, end of Edith’s shovel.
When Edith first arrives at Allerdale Hall we are greeted with a rusted red sign as they travel down the red clay path, a road of violence quite literally leading to the house.
The red clay itself, seeping out of the house as if the Hall itself is alive and bleeding is such haunting imagery and brilliantly communicates the dark and violent history of the house. All the terrible things that happened here literally cannot be contained anymore and are physically bleeding through to the surface.
The dog’s rubber ball is red, and we find out later that the dog belonged to a previous wife and was left out in the cold, with the intention to kill it. Lucille ends up actually committing the act during the climax of the film.
When Thomas and Lucille, and the true nature of their relationship, are discovered, we see that Lucille’s room has red walls, and she puts on a little red sash around her robe and nightgown before she begins her final kills.
Remember this dress? That red flower is in the exact spot where Edith stabs Lucille with her pen.
However, perhaps the most memorable use of red in Crimson Peak is in its horrifying ghostly inhabitants.
The ghosts are a metaphor
The ghosts throughout Crimson Peak actually use their own color scheme: white, black, and red. Each color represents what kind of ghosts they are and their main motivations. Again, red represents violence so any ghosts that were murdered at Allerdale Hall, like Enola, are always red.
Ghosts that are black are tied to a specific memory, place, time etc. Something that Edith explains for us in the last lines of the movie:
“There are things that tie them to a place, very much like they do us. Some remain tethered to a patch of land. A time and date. The spilling of blood. A terrible crime. But there are others. Others that hold onto an emotion. A drive. Loss. Revenge. Or love. Those, they never go away.”
So ghosts like Edith’s mother, who is held to a drive to warn Edith about Crimson Peak, are black. Lucille, whose very identity was wrapped up in Allerdale Hall and refused to leave and let go, ended up being a black ghost.
However there is one white ghost. Thomas ended up becoming a white ghost because he's the only one that's not tied to a place or a person. He apologized to Edith, he let Allerdale Hall go and desperately wanted to leave the past behind and start his life over, no longer wanting to inflict pain and suffering. He ultimately redeemed himself and wanted to change, so in his death he became free.
The absolute best example I have of this masterful color map of Crimson Peak is this Frome canvas of the movie. Each stripe is the average color from each scene. You can see all the scenes in America so clearly in the first third, then the dramatic shift to Allerdale Hall, and even the America flashbacks sprinkled throughout. It’s such a clear and distinct color journey and I just love it so much.
I hope you enjoyed this analysis! In my opinion, Crimson Peak is a cinematic masterpiece, and it has served as an enormous source of inspiration to me and my work since the day it came out.
If you watch the movie again after reading this, let me know if you noticed any new details!
If you’re looking for a film Colorist that’s intentional and thoughtful about the use of color in your film production, feel free to contact me. You can also follow me and my grading, photography, and design work on Instagram, and over on TikTok I love to talk about color theory and costume design in my favorite films.
