Gothika Movie Review:


Halle Berry goes crazy and “rings” a little to close to another popular horror film.

Halle Berry stars as psychiatrist Miranda Grey, who works in an elaborate mental institution headed by her husband, Dr. Douglas Grey (Charles S. Dutton). Miranda’s friend Pete (Robert Downey Jr.) also works with Doug and Miranda.

During a freakish rainstorm, the institution suffers from several power-outages and forces Miranda to return home to Doug. During her trip home, she is detoured across a country bridge where she narrowly misses a naked girl wandering in of the middle road.

This is all Miranda can remember. And now she has just awoke within the walls of her own institution not as a doctor but as a patient. Is she crazy? She might just be because during her memory relapse, she also murdered Doug.

The first half of the film has a lot of the tension and paranoia audiences felt in last year’s horror phenomenon “The Ring” but by the second half I was waiting for Morgan Freeman’s Alex Cross to come out from the shadows and solve Halle’s case.

Halle Berry’s desperation, sweat-soaked institution attire and frayed hair add oodles to her powerful performance. But even as the role does allow her to go way over the top we still don’t feel a lot for her character. Within this performance is some of what we got in “Monster’s Ball” but not enough to make the film really captivate.

Downey Jr. is bored to tears in the pining for Halle role. It is such a waste to see such a natural and brilliant actor reduced to this “Demerol-induced” drone.

The performance by Penelope Cruz is strong and daring. It is her scenes with Halle that are the most memorable of this film. The two actresses together are quite impressive as we can see them feeding off each other.

The whole mass patient shower scene where Halle is struck down was in such poor taste that I was literally shaking my head thinking was I actually seeing a late-night “Cinemax” moment on the silver screen. It was awful probably the worst excuse for a shower scene since “Starship Troopers”.

The film did have a few frights and some very interesting camera angles. Some of the slow motion effects and visual effects were impressive and made for nice moody mental moments. But for the most part we had seen all of it before.

It is a shame this is Halle’s first giant role since her Oscar win but without Halle and some clever camera uses, this could have been a “Full Moon Entertainment” horror film instead of a “Dark Castle” production. Oh and one last thing, “The Ring” girl is back

(2 out of 5)

So Says the Soothsayer.

Dean Kish

From the Dark Castle schlockmeisters (see Ghost Ship), here's another truly cheesy thriller that only works because it knows how silly it is. This is guilty pleasure moviemaking that expects the audience to laugh at it. If you take it seriously, you'll think it's one of the worst films you've ever seen!

Dr Miranda Grey (Berry) is a psychiatrist at a New England prison for criminally insane women. On her way home one evening after work, during a torrential electric storm of course, she encounters a freaky girl in the road. The next thing she knows she's an inmate in her own prison, accused of murdering her husband (Dutton), also a doctor there. Her trusted colleague (Downey), another doctor (Hill) and the local sheriff (Lynch) are all trying get to the bottom of it, but she can't remember what happened. And besides, everyone thinks she's crazy! Then strange things begin happening, and Miranda has to take a bizarre leap of faith to solve the mystery. Perhaps her former patient and now fellow inmate Chloe (Cruz) might not be as nuts as she thought.

Basically this is a standard ghost story, and French director Kassovitz approaches it almost like a music video, with deeply unrealistic set design (walls painted black and so on), eerily insinuating special effects, red herrings at every level of the production and heightened performances that make you believe everyone's guilty of murder. Along the way, he somehow manages to keep us nervous and jumpy, even as the plot and dialog get increasingly laughable ("I'm not delusional, I'm possessed!"). It helps to have such a solid cast on board, because it lends a kind of warped emotional believability to the overall goofiness. And although it's very hard to imagine this ever becoming a cult classic, simply because there's not much to it, it's a fairly good time at the movies ... if you're prepared to just sit back and have fun. Hey, there's hours of enjoyment in store just in guessing what the title means!

Rich Cline

Miranda Grey (Berry) was one of the most renowned psychiatrists working in the prison system. With a loving husband (Dutton) and the respect of her colleagues, even difficulties with a patient’s case couldn’t distract her from her perfect life. This all changed on the night of a torrential downpour, which caused her to take a detour home. When travelling over an old bridge she had to serve to avoid a girl stood in the middle of the road. Staggering out of her car she goes to help the girl but as soon as she touches her everything goes dark. Miranda then awakes in a prison cell, faced by her colleague Pete Graham (Downey Jr.) who tells her that she is been held for the murder of her husband.

Dark Castle Entertainment, the joint horror venture between Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis has done it again. They have produced an extremely average ghost movie.

Hollywood is really grasping at straws when it comes to horror, stealing and recycling ideas from any film that has been profitable and Gothika is no exception. Pinching sections from many different crime thrillers, blending them with a dash of “The Sixth Sense” and throwing in bits from every other Dark Castle movie, this film feels more like déjà vu than something new.

Halle Berry has made some strange career choices since winning her Oscar and appearing in a horror movie wasn’t exactly the greatest decision she ever made. Its not that her performance is bad or anything, in fact she does very well with the material but it isn’t the most challenging role that will allow her to continue to showcase her talent. It is the completely average script that lets her down as she has to deliver some truly terrible dialogue like “I'm not deluded, I'm possessed!” but she does try her best to make it convincing.

Her supporting cast also give the material their best shot. Robert Downey Jr. is fine as Pete Graham but the role isn’t really a challenge for him. Bernard Hill and Charles Dutton only appear fleetingly, which is a complete waste of these talented actors. Penélope Cruz is convincing enough as mental patient Chloe but like Berry, she has to struggle with the appalling dialogue.

It looks like Dark Castle Entertainment is becoming notorious for producing very average ghost movies and Gothika does nothing to change that. It has some jumpy moments and a twist that isn’t completely obvious but it is the complete lack of originality that lets the movie down. See it and you will feel like you’ve seen it all before.

Star Rating = * *

Jamie Kelwick

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