This was highly anticipated film. The director didn't succeeded in fulfilling the expectations of audience and not at all film-critics. Still this picture does not belong to the category of completely useless pictures that you wouldn't enjoy.
The art design including costumes, scenery, stylization, camera operating and everything made to satisfy the eye is perfectly done with detail. The topic for it's self must be the house of the Sharp family. The building has its own spirit, which the characters itself unfortunately lack.
And characters is the next important thing to talk about. There is quite a top actors basis. Mia Wasikowska representing a young Victorian woman absolutely fits. Tom Hiddleston as the wanted perfect man with dark secrets is a natural choice. And finally the amazing Jessica Chastain showed a perfect performance as the evil sister. She nearly stole the whole spectacle for herself. But still it does not work very well. The main problem is that the relationship between Edith and Thomas is not believable. They lack ''chemistry''. Some converging and strongly intimate scenes are missing. The other problem is Edith Cushing herself. When arriving at the house, she suddenly changes from an intelligent emancipated woman to classic scared horror virgin type who needs a protection and loses a good deal of sympathy.
The story itself is predictable, and so does not need to be focused on. Maybe the reason is that Guillermo del Torro planned to shoot this picture a long time ago and he simply lost the connection with the topic and focused on technical stuff. On the other hand, this is an opportunity to see a pure cliché, not meant in a bad way, horror- drama movie with all its attributes and great visual quality. The treatment with sounds for increasing the tension is comparable to The Woman in Black (2012).
It does not deserve to be strongly criticized nor praised, but since I'm fan of all three actors and Guillermo del Toro, I must say I enjoyed it quite a lot.
