Gothika takes a credible idea and makes it preposterous.
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If I made a list of all the movies I'd want to see in high definition, "Gothika" would not exactly spring to the top of the roster. Indeed, it would not even make the cut. However, in fairness to this 2003 horror thriller, it was fairly popular with audiences, and it does show up well on HD DVD.
The first question that struck me about "Gothika" before I had even watched it, though, was the title. I didn't know what it meant. Oh, I knew "gothic," defined by my Random House Unabridged Dictionary as, among other things, "a style of literature characterized by a gloomy setting, grotesque, mysterious, or violent events, and an atmosphere of degeneration and decay." Then I remembered Attica State Penitentiary in upper New York, scene of the infamous prison riots of the early seventies. Putting two and two together, I guessed the movie might be a dark, gothic tale set in the gloomy setting of an old, dilapidated prison. I wasn't far wrong.
What I didn't count on were the ghosts.
Clearly, the success of "The Ring" the year before inspired the "Gothika" filmmakers. The similarities in tone, mood, music, and subject matter are too obvious to overlook. Yet, where "The Ring" took a preposterous idea and made it credible, "Gothika" takes a credible idea and makes it preposterous. This is not to suggest that "Gothika" is entirely unlikable, the first half of the movie being quite effective, but it goes downhill fast from there. It's as if the screenwriter, Sebastian Gutierrez, had a great starting point for a horror story, built up its exposition, then had nowhere to take it.
Halle Berry stars as a psychiatrist, Dr. Miranda Grey, who works in the mental ward of a maximum-security penitentiary. The gimmick is that shortly after the movie opens, she winds up a patient in her own hospital. How she got there, why she's there, and what she tries to do about it make up the movie's plot. I had no trouble accepting Ms. Berry as a doctor; she's a fine actress. Nor did I have trouble accepting the typical horror-flick conventions of the gloomy, old building with its dimly lit corridors or Miranda's falling prey to disaster on a dark and stormy night. Indeed, I've come to expect and appreciate the traditions of good, B-grade chillers. I mean, what would horror movies do without dark and stormy nights? What I would have liked was more a rational consistency in the story line.
Miranda's husband, Douglas Grey (Charles Dutton), is a fellow doctor at the prison, but he's not in the picture more than a few minutes before he's summarily dispatched. You see, Miranda is driving home during the aforementioned stormy night when she very nearly hits a girl in the middle of the road. Stopping to assist her, Miranda is horrified when the young woman self-immolates in front of her eyes, at which point Miranda blacks out. When she awakens, she's locked in her own looney bin, accused of chopping up her husband with an axe!
Miranda now gets to see things from the inside, a perspective she never had the luxury to experience before. Penelope Cruz plays a former patient of Miranda's, now a fellow inmate, who thinks she's being repeatedly raped by the devil. Poor Ms. Cruz, along with the rest of the supporting cast, does her best, but the role is a dead-end. We think her character is going to be pivotal or elaborated in some way, but it isn't. Her one good line is "You can't trust someone who thinks you're crazy," because it becomes an important story element later on. Other than that, there's not a lot of need for her presence. Miranda's attending physician is Pete Graham, played by the excellent Robert Downey, Jr., and he, too, gets a juicy role for a limited time. Then, like the rest of the players, he practically disappears. The film equally ignores others in the cast: Bernard Hill as Phil Parsons, the head of the hospital facility; John Carroll Lynch as Sheriff Ryan, the murdered man's best friend; and Kathleen McKey as the young apparition who continues to appear to Miranda, but who says nothing.
Once the setup is complete, director Mahieu Kassovitz ("The Crimson Rivers") paces the first thirty minutes or so quite well and fashions a solidly morbid atmosphere; but then the movie starts to fall apart. It gets repetitious; more gory as Miranda goes through all kinds of abuse, being sliced with the words "Not alone" either by herself or by forces unknown; more bizarre in its camera angles and technical effects; more frenetic in its quick cutting; and more prone to loud noises, loud music, and red herrings for its scare tactics. Before we know it, the movie substitutes cheap thrills for serious plot development.
When we're wondering if Miranda is crazy or delusional or really seeing spirits, the movie is engrossing. When we're wondering why no one believes she's sane--not her doctor, not even her own lawyer--the movie remains engaging. But when the film shows her being chased and followed down the usual paths, it becomes trite and mundane, culminating in a totally humdrum climax. When the movie's over, you'd best not think about it, because if you do, you realize that none of it makes any sense, the gaping plot discrepancies and one's many questions making the whole experience all the more frustrating.
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[release]21780[/release]