THERE'S an early moment in Crimson Peak when the film’s heroine – aspiring writer Edith Cushing – says of her latest work: “It’s not a ghost story, but a story with ghosts in it.” And that’s exactly how you would describe the film itself. You might also say it’s a horror film with very little horror in it.

Considering the ghouls, the haunted mansion and the monstrous violence before us, this Gothic romance just isn’t scary enough. And given that it’s directed by Guillermo del Toro, whose Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone were both so chilling, this has to be seen as a failure. That said, it’s elegantly made and quite engrossing, with an enjoyably twisted account of love.

It’s 1901, in Buffalo, New York State. Having had an early encounter with a ghost – her mother’s, no less – Edith (Mia Wasikowska) has grown up to be an independently minded and level-headed only daughter of industrialist Carter Cushing. She’s also something of an outsider, having to contest the chauvinism of the local men and ignorance of the socialite ladies, none of whom understand a young woman’s desire to write. And so when the dashing and attentive Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) breezes into town from England, taking a keen interest in both her person and her prose, Edith is swept off her feet.

Sharpe is a baronet with title but no cash, seeking funds to develop his cherished invention, a clay extractor. Edith’s suspicious father does some digging of his own, into the background of the man seeking to become both business partner and son-in-law. And he doesn’t like what he finds.

If Sir Thomas seems a vulnerable fellow, however dastardly his intentions, his sister Lady Lucille (Jessica Chastain) is not in the slightest bit ambiguous. She’s quite clearly malevolent. And so, when Edith is eventually whisked back to England and the Sharpes’ crumbling Northern pile, Allerdale Hall, we can only fear the worst.

The film’s fabulous production design is integral to the atmosphere of the story. The house is Wuthering Heights with bells on, grand in scale but decrepit, with a constant fall of leaves through the broken roof (and snow in winter), damp, creaking, its walls mottled and with blood red soil seeping through the floorboards from the mines below. Roaring fires fight a losing battle against the cold. And, its piece de resistance, the groaning ghosts of previous, murdered occupants roam the floors.

The costumes are no less pleasing and apposite. Wasikowska and Chastain are presented as polar opposites, one blonde and chaste, often wearing white, the other raven-haired and dark-eyed, first seen in opulent red, with a possessiveness toward her brother that suggests more than sibling fondness; indeed, when she talks of “monstrous love, full of sweat and regret”, one pities the object of affections.

Caught between the two women, Hiddleston’s honey-voiced Thomas does most to keep the slow-burn mystery of the piece alive. He and Wasikowska reprise their onscreen partnership from last year’s vampire black comedy Only Lovers Left Alive, and are again excellent. But the show is stolen by Chastain, who makes a very convincing Gothic villainess; I can imagine her one day playing Mrs Danvers, or Miss Haversham.

When the actors start taking chunks out of the scenery and each other, the film has a certain grotesque frisson. But it’s notable how subordinate the ghosts are to proceedings; I detected just one moment of chill. Like Edith’s other admirer and supposed saviour (an ill-cast Charlie Hunnam), the spectres may as well be invisible.