Hogwarts: Legacy of the Necromancer

Edith Cushing had left, but Alan McMichael remained determined to pursue the truth.

Watching the scene, Milla Jovovich realized that this marked the halfway point of the movie. The second half would unveil the full truth of the story. But soon enough, her natural curiosity as a woman kicked in again—the ring in the movie was simply stunning!

It had been taken from Lucille Sharpe's hand and placed onto Edith Cushing's finger. Was this because the Sharpe siblings were too poor to afford a new one and had to use a family heirloom for the proposal? Or did the ring hold a deeper meaning?

Was it a symbol of the shift in the mistress of the house? Or was it something more—a reflection of Thomas Sharpe's shifting affections?

Milla Jovovich was startled by her own speculation. They were siblings, after all!

If it was just about money, then based on the plot where the Sharpe siblings sought investors, it seemed they truly were financially strained.

If it symbolized a transfer of the title of mistress, then that made sense as well. The sister could indeed be considered the former mistress of the Sharpe household, and now Edith Cushing had taken her place.

But if it signified a romantic bond, considering the relationship between the Sharpe siblings, that would be... incestuous, and completely unacceptable in society!

My God! Milla Jovovich knew that professional film critics usually had some integrity and wouldn't spoil such hidden plot points.

Is this what it meant when people said that what film critics had to endure, audiences must also endure for the sake of fairness?

She paused the video, unsure whether to continue watching. But after reminding herself that this was for studying Regulus Black's acting skills, she decided to resume the recording.

The story moved forward. Crimson Peak was an ancient mansion, so old and decayed that even the ceiling had a gaping hole. Dust piled thick in the center of the hall. The Gothic architecture and the dilapidated surroundings all hinted at the hardships awaiting Edith Cushing.

On her very first night, Edith encountered a ghost in her sleep—a red, skeleton-like apparition that terrified her so much she screamed and fled the room.

"Below. Go below. Go to the basement."

The ghost whispered this in her ear before vanishing without a trace. Edith sat bolt upright in bed, realizing it had all been a dream.

It wasn't her first time seeing a ghost. Ever since her mother passed away, she had been haunted several times a year. She knew it was her mother's spirit, but the ghost's appearance was always terrifying. This had also been mentioned earlier in the film, and comparing both parts, it became clear: the ghosts were categorized by color—some black, some red.

Each time her mother's ghost appeared, it had always mentioned Crimson Peak. That was one of the main reasons Edith had agreed to follow her husband there.

Alan McMichael was searching for the truth, and so was Edith Cushing.

Soon, the truth began to surface. Edith seized a chance to enter the basement. Two rows of vats stood silently, filled with red liquid—clay soaked in water, presumably to be mixed for making red pigments.

But the scene looked more like a pool of blood—hell's own blood pool.

That was exactly what Milla Jovovich thought too. Eight pools in total, four on each side. And the walls leading to the basement were stained red and damp, making it appear as if blood was seeping from them.

Edith picked up a wooden stick nearby and tried fishing something out of one of the vats. The thick red substance resembled blood plasma. She stirred forcefully a few times, then slowly lifted the stick—but found nothing.

Both Edith and Milla Jovovich let out a sigh of relief.

Though they had been hoping to find something, uncovering a skeleton would've been horrifying.

Edith lost interest in the vat and turned to leave the basement. But in the nearby vat, a human rib cage suddenly rose to the surface, accompanied by a bubbling noise. The shot startled Milla Jovovich.

Edith heard it too. She turned around, but saw nothing—the rib cage had already sunk back into the vat, vanishing without the support of air bubbles.

A chance to uncover the truth had just slipped away.

However, her turning around did allow her to spot a box in the corner—one that had been buried in the wall. The red clay wall originally used to conceal it had been eroded by water, revealing part of the box.

Such a clearly hidden treasure naturally caught Edith's attention. She dragged the box back to her room and hid it carefully.

But without a key, she couldn't open it, and so the matter was temporarily set aside again.

The weather began to turn cold. Winter was fast approaching. Thomas Sharpe was fully absorbed in working on his digging machine, testing it day and night. This left him neglecting his new wife. The two had not shared a bed since their wedding.

Whether it was because Mr. Cushing had just passed away, or due to the progress of Sharpe's machine research, these became the reasons Thomas used to placate Edith. Each night she fell asleep in a haze, only to be woken again by the roar of the machine.

However, this calm was soon shattered by the first blizzard of the winter.

On the day the blizzard arrived, the weather was still clear. Thanks to financial support from his wife, Thomas Sharpe was able to conduct improvements and tests on his excavator, so he planned to visit the town that day to pick up custom-made machine parts.

As soon as she heard there was a trip to town, Edith Cushing—who had once lived in a major American city—immediately insisted on going along.

The Sharpe siblings didn't seem keen on bringing her, but they had no good reason to refuse. When Thomas Sharpe and Edith Cushing boarded the carriage, Lucille Sharpe's resentful gaze as she saw them off was chilling.

Milla Jovovich froze the scene and closed her eyes, trying to channel the emotion and replicate it—but it was clear she had failed.

"That's a performance that hits deep."

Though she felt she had learned something, Milla Jovovich couldn't quite grasp the finer details, and had to admit that it was a very difficult performance to master.

When the couple arrived in town, they successfully collected the machine parts. The town workers loaded the parts onto the carriage but refused to deliver them to the mansion, as the first blizzard of the season had arrived.

With nowhere else to go, and on the innkeeper's suggestion, the couple took shelter in the inn's basement to wait out the storm.

An air of natural, unspoken intimacy began to emerge—no grief over a lost father, no work to occupy them, no calming tea before bed.

In the howling, bitter cold, the basement fireplace of the small inn could not provide enough warmth.

The two of them seemed to return to those early days of their relationship, talking about Edith Cushing's novels and Thomas Sharpe's dreams.

What do two lovers do when left alone, free from outside distractions? Of course—they gracefully tumble into bed!

This scene was something the chubby director made sure to shoot while Regulus Black was away, yet the influence of Black's filming style was still present in the cinematography.

Regulus Black, in his third lifetime, favored the method of strategic obstruction—an approach he believed to be the most suggestive and engaging.

Thus, during the bedroom scene, the camera was in constant motion, but all the key parts were kept obscured.

Though the audience could infer from the shot composition that the two were indeed naked and entwined, nothing explicit was shown.

Because of this, some online critics furiously condemned the director as a second-rate softcore filmmaker—too cowardly to film a single frontal nude shot.

But the chubby director didn't care. This style of shooting helped him bypass significant censorship issues and allowed the thriller to pass review smoothly. Only a director knows how torturous reshoots and re-editing can be in post-production.

Even Milla Jovovich had to admit that this particular scene was visually stunning. In fact, the entire Crimson Peak film was rich with aesthetic beauty—a dark, haunting beauty, a fusion of Baroque and Gothic styles.

After that night, events began to accelerate. The sleeping pills in Edith Cushing's evening tea were replaced with a slow-acting poison. Lucille Sharpe hoped the new bride would succumb to the brutal winter cold before the year's end.

Blissfully unaware, Edith Cushing was immersed in the joy of growing closer to her husband, completely oblivious to her worsening condition.

The film shifted to contrast scenes, drawing viewers' hearts into anxiety over Edith Cushing's failing health.

Such an innocent, lovely bride—about to perish at the hands of the malicious Lucille Sharpe.

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