Horror-drama looks great, but its story is ghostly. Review by Brandon Wolfe Early in Crimson Peak , aspiring writer Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) proclaims of a story she’s working on, “It’s not a ghost story, it’s a story with a ghost in it.” It’s a highly self-aware moment from writer/director Guillermo del Toro, as that very same distinction could also be applied to his latest film. Crimson Peak is being marketed as a full-blown spookfest, the period setting and prestigious cast seemingly the only things separating it from a regular monthly installment from the Blumhouse factory. Truth be told, while there are ghosts in play during Crimson Peak , and while they do some freaky things, they exist solely as an accessory in a story that isn’t actually about them, that potentially doesn’t even require them. In the late 19th Century, wealthy American industrialist Carter Cushing (Jim Beaver) takes a meeting with an aristocratic British entrepreneur, Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddlesto