Gothika (2003)

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The wife of eminent psychologist Dr. Grey has apparently murdered him in a twisted tale of horror, suspense, and ghostly possession. It's an escape movie, wherein Miranda Grey (Halle Berry) is accused of a crime she committed "by proxy" as the unwilling victim of ghostly possession. She must run for her life. Is it badly written? As a horror story, it succeeds. As a who (or what) done-it, it's quite elementary, as I guessed the accomplice half-way through the film, based on awkward clues. Both men, the Chief of Police and Dr. Grey have their own little Satanic Cult going-on, involving S&M, torture, and the death of innocent women, while videotaping them. (sick) Miranda is an inmate in the "Psycho Ward" of her own ghastly prison. It's a monstrous, evil place. She is carved-up and attacked by a ghost and inmates in a nightmarish shower sequence, and accused of being both "a cutter" and suicidal. She is guided by the ghost of the Head Administrator's daughter, as she was also murdered by Dr. Grey and mistakenly thought to have died by suicide as a bridge jumper. In the end, Miranda is exonerated of all crimes, which is very hard-to-believe, as her hands, if not her body, did kill her evil husband. However, she still sees ghosts. I enjoyed Halle's good performance in spite of the somewhat predictable storyline. "Gothika", as explained by "Chloe", is the realm of Satan. Graphic, confusing, unsettling, and certainly not for the squeamish.

A repressed female psychiatrist (Halle Berry) wakes up as a patient in the asylum where she worked, with no memory of why she is there or what she has done.How do you put John Carroll Lynch and Robert Downey in a movie and have it be bad? That is a real challenge. Of course, adding Halle Berry probably is the top reason this movie is garbage, but she is not the only one to blame. The plot is messed up and the editing is pretty ridiculous.Others have compared this to "Sixth Sense" and other films like that. Certainly "Shutter Island" seems appropriate. Both of those are worlds ahead of this one. I was just so not interested in this, at all, and few people love horror and thrillers more than I do.

Whilst hardly being a very good horror film, it's not exactly the stinker some would have you believe.The problems with it are that it becomes overblown, after initially pulsing away as a very moody and atmospherically tight spooker, set to a superbly eerie asylum backdrop, it gets away from itself in the final third. The makers never quite grasp the concept of keeping the mystery aspects of the plot still cloaked in scary tints. Tech credits are dandy, though an impressive cast list are not asked to stretch themselves. It's not ever overtly frightening and lacks suspense in some key areas, but there's still enough of a creepy vibe here to not waste the time of first time viewers. Repeat viewing prospects, though? Unlikely. 6/10

BIG SPOILERS: "Gothika" is a very strange movie to say the least. The supernatural plot itself seemed awfully convenient and even contrived when it needed to be. Why didn't the ghost just haunt and possess the rapist and have him kill Halle's husband and then kill himself? Why drag Halle into this? Raping and killing since they were 15 years old? How did this tubby Psycho land a beautiful and intelligent psychologist like Halle as a wife? Why didn't Penelope's character just tell her who the rapist was? Why all the cryptic games if the rapist was real and not a ghost? Why did the ghost of the dead victim cut up and beat the crap out of Halle if she wanted her help? The answer to all these questions is… because they had to in order to fit the plot. I hate movies that unfold in this manner. You can almost physically see where the screenwriter had good ideas but struggled to connect them into a coherent story. Instead of a complete and an intelligent story, we have to watch the adaptation of a sloppy script and are forced to put up with inconsistencies as the movie plays connect the dots. Still, Halle gives a good performance and, despite the absurdity, I found myself caught up in the movie. So, one star for each of those factors but nothing more.