Entertainment

Charlie Hunnam Stuns In New ‘Crimson Peak’ Posters

Published on: July 16, 2015 at 1:24 PM ET
Stacey Cole
Written By Stacey Cole
News Writer

Charlie Hunnam can do no wrong according to his fans, which grow in number every day.

While he spends his summer shooting for Guy Ritchie’s Knights of the Roundtable: King Arthur in the Scottish Highlands, posters of Charlie Hunnam starring as Dr. Alan McMichael in Guillermo Del Toro’s gothic-fantasy film, Crimson Peak , were released last week at the San Diego Comic-Con.

Apart from Charlie Hunnam, the posters also feature stars Tom Hiddleston as Sir Thomas Sharpe, Jessica Chastain as his sister, Lady Lucille, and Mia Wasikowska, who plays Edith Cushing in the movie.

Guillermo Del Toro is known for being scrupulous with the imagery of his films, and in his school of filmmaking, posters have an important role to play. Alternating between themes of Catholicism, horror, and fairy tales, he makes sure to imbue his works with a certain poetic finesse, and the new posters are a great example of this approach to filmmaking.

Charlie Hunnam’s poster reveals him in blue, with crimson red angelic wing-like graphics in the background. Speaking to Collider earlier, Charlie Hunnam spoke about Dr. Alan’s character in the film.

“He’s a totally different character than I’ve ever played. He’s a very kind of quiet, shy, thoughtful kind of stoic, taciturn, very learned guy who is madly in love with the female hero.”

From this statement, it is not difficult to infer the impressions cast by Charlie Hunnam’s first look in the film. His poster, with his angelic wings, makes him appear as a man of wisdom and courage, while Tom Hiddleston’s picture with a red skull in the background clearly paints him as the more ominous sort of character. And then, between them both, is Edith Cushing, with a butterfly as her guardian angel, apparently the subject of their love (unrequited, perhaps?).

And while all these characters, including Charlie Hunnam’s Dr. Alan, have been written keeping in line with Del Toro’s sagacious views on horror, and mark his return to his favorite concept of the “ haunted house ,” the director insisted in an interview reported by Youth Health that the film should not be seen as just another haunted house movie.

“It’s not that at all. The house is a rotting representation of the family that has inhabited it — it’s like a cage, a ­killing jar that you use to kill butterflies. The house basically is a sinister, sinister trap.”

He also revealed the story is more to do with the breakdown of a marriage than anything else.

“I tried on ‘Crimson Peak’ to say that the horror starts after the marriage. This girl wakes up in a strange place, not her own home, not her own bed, and she little by little realizes that she knows less about the man she married than one would expect. The curious thing is the love story really starts when they acknowledge that darkness.”

Crimson Peak is due for release on October 16, and with the buzz that is already surrounding it, it looks like the film with be just another step on Charlie Hunnam’s meteoric rise to superstardom.

[Photo: Crimson Peak / Twitter @crimsonpeak ]

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