Gothika Reviews

Too muddled to be taken seriously, too campy to be scary, Gothika exists in some cinematic neverwhere that finds its various actors seemingly performing in completely different movies that coexist from in a filmic multiverse. Stylish to a fault, it’s always a red flag when a film has too much going on and at maximum volume, yet it’s not quite capable of pulling off the hat trick of zooming around terrible towards being ironically entertaining. Is Gothika a ghost story, one of possession, of a character suddenly capable of supernatural communion? The answer to all these questions is yes, as the script wanders wherever it needs to at any given moment to propel the plot forward without any thought to its interior logistics.

A criminal psychologist gets into a car accident on a rainy night only to awaken as a patient in the former hospital she once worked at. Of course, there’s a deeper mystery that dovetails with her murdered husband, missing young girls, the ghost of a straggly blonde, and too nice to not be suspicious cop. Oh, and there’s also a patient claiming to be raped by the devil and a former colleague that’s in love and rooting for our frail heroine to come out on top, in more ways than one.

If any of that sounds borrowed from other, better horror movies, that’s because it is. Gothika merely regurgitates tropes and images from various canonized classics in the genre without a coherent thought as to why and how these things are being deployed. Halle Berry gives sweaty intensity, Robert Downey, Jr. is laconic, John Carroll Lynch is genial until he’s required not to be, and Penélope Cruz goes completely looney in a scenery-chewing performance that must deliver the lion’s share of groan-worthy whoopers. Gothika is mindless garbage, but Cruz manages to give it a campy elan that almost makes the journey worthwhile.

Once one of the most promising directors from France, Mathieu Kassovitz eventually turned out to have a rather disappointing career after all. Indeed, his 2^nd directing effort, ‘La haine’, turned out to be one of the most acclaimed movies released in the 90’s and many people expected great things from this guy but none of his following directing efforts ever reached that level again. This movie was a fine example. Indeed, at some point, Kassovitz got the opportunity to work in Hollywood and, like many other successful French directors, he was hired to direct a horror flick but, at least it wasn’t a remake. Well, it was certainly nothing really amazing but I thought it was still fairly entertaining thanks to some solid directing and a decent cast (Halle Berry, Robert Downey Jr., Penélope Cruz). Obviously, the whole story was seriously preposterous and, above all, what really annoyed me and almost ruined the whole thing for me was the fact that the main character, a psychiatrist, would end up being a patient in the mental hospital where she used to work. Seriously, that was something really ridiculous and almost impossible to swallow for me. Anyway, to conclude, I think I’m being rather generous with my rating here but I still think it is worth a look though. Still, you shouldn’t expect too much before watching the damned thing. 

Hollywood, it would seem, has a penchant for delivering horror movies about a haunting that will not go away until the protagonist/s are able to get to the bottom of the ghost's pained existence in the real world. As long as there is some intriguing supernatural mystery within these shockers, they can be moderately effective and at times scary. But, unfortunately, the reasons behind the supernatural ruckus are normally either too downright laughable or preposterous. After such movies as The Ring and What Lies Beneath demonstrated this formula, 2003's Gothika arrived to continue the trend - and it is not exempt from the common flaws. An admittedly slick, competently-produced horror flick, Gothika begins with tremendous potential but gradually descends from effective A-grade psychological shocker to ineffective Z-grade formula fluff. It's a silly B-movie that was brought to life with A-grade filmmaking.

An expert psychiatrist working in a hospital for the mentally disturbed, Miranda Grey (Berry) is having trouble getting through to her latest patient (Cruz) who claims she's being raped by the devil. On her way home from work during a (clichéd) heavy rainstorm, Miranda loses control of her car while attempting to avoid hitting a bloodied young girl standing in the middle of the road. While trying to help the girl, Miranda blacks out. The next thing Miranda knows, she is a patient of her own place of employment. She has been accused with the brutal murder of her husband (Dutton), but has absolutely no recollections of carrying out the deed. Soon, she becomes plagued with supernatural visitations that gradually escalate in both frequency and intensity.

Gothika appears to be a feature about common sense and awareness, yet screenwriter Sebastian Gutierrez and director Mathieu Kassovitz drop several gargantuan logic-bending bombs during the film. One of the biggest whoppers is the fact that Miranda is meant to be a brilliant psychiatrist, but it takes an inordinately long time for her to figure out what's happening to her. How could she have been in tune with the emotions of her patients when she cannot figure out her own situation? The most unforgivable hole is the simple fact that, after allegedly committing a murder, Miranda is admitted into the mental hospital that she works at and placed among the patients she has been treating. Furthermore, Miranda's close friend and colleague (Downey Jr.) is assigned to her case because silly movie logic dictates it. There's lots of contrived character behaviour, too, such as a security guard who agrees to help Miranda during one of her escape attempts. Meanwhile, the ghost that's haunting Miranda seems to implement very harsh methods to get a simple message across. Said ghost only uses two words to try to tell Miranda something - why doesn't it use a wider vocabulary? At one stage in the movie, Miranda says "Logic is overrated". You know what? The joke is way too easy...

Kassovitz made an international splash with the French films La haine (Hate) and Amelie. For Gothika, Kassovitz has further demonstrated that he's a master of style and atmosphere. However, the film also brings to light that his masterful filmmaking can be let down by an inferior script. After a promising first half, the film deteriorates into a silly murder mystery, complete with some cheesy special effects and a killer who has no problem revealing everything to the protagonist. Pacing is an issue from time to time as well, and this is due to the fact that there are simply not enough interesting ideas. There are twists that may surprise some viewers, but most of the twists are predictable and carelessly telegraphed. To make matters worse, the climax is a functionally retarded cop-out which was designed solely to provide a happy ending. Reason goes by the wayside for the ending, along with a general understanding of the filmmaking process. There's nothing worse than watching a promising motion picture as it collapses before your eyes.

Halle Berry is the film's biggest "name" actor, and spends most of the movie acting overwrought. It's an effective performance considering the below-par material, but it's not remarkable. While Berry carried out what was required of her, there are dozens of other actresses who could have done an equally good job. Also, Charles S. Dutton is woefully miscast as Miranda's husband. C'mon, Dutton and Berry as husband and wife? Frankly, Halle Berry is way to hot for him. In the supporting cast, Penélope Cruz pulled off an effective, unglamorous performance as one of Miranda's patients, and Robert Downey Jr. is tragically underused as Miranda's friend Pete. Downey, who went on to become an A-list star with Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes, is a versatile actor, but was not given a great deal to chew on.

Ghost stories are notoriously difficult to get right. More often than not, supernatural horror movies are cheesy and utterly moronic. For the first half of Gothika, it would appear that the makers have overcome that critical problem. Yet, the film gradually deteriorates until it is no longer scary or atmospheric, but just plain ridiculous. No amount of stylish filmmaking could compensate for the bad screenplay. Gothika can best be described as one of those movies that may hold your interest if you're bored stiff and channel surfing in the early hours of the morning - it's worth watching if you have nothing better to do, but your mind will likely wander throughout. It's the equivalent of reading a book while your brain becomes preoccupied with something else and your mind enters a sort of limbo. Thus, in final analysis, Gothika is just okay - it's hardly terrible since it has its moments (and the first half is brilliant), but it won't keep a viewer on the edge of their seat.

5.8/10