Rated R for violence, brief language and nudity.

98 Minutes

Directed By: Mathieu Kassovitz

Written By: Sebastian Gutierrez

Staring: Halle Berry, Robert Downey Jr., Charles S. Dutton, Penelope Cruz, Bernard Hill, John Carroll Lynch, and Kathleen Mackey

You can’t trust someone who thinks you’re crazy.-Chloe

Synopsis

After a car accident a female psychiatrist at a mental instiution finds herself committed as a patient and accused of murdering her husband.

Review

With much pretense I spent a lonely Valentines day watching Gothika. With all my boys gone I opted against a typical heart day romance movie and went for the scary. I was rewarded gladly with a suspenseful ghost story that was to my relief told in scary and non-typical way.

Gothika strayed from the norm when it comes to ghostly movies and didn’t bother to rely on special effects or CGI. It went old school scary, appealing the psychology of fear and the unknown. I was not even sure it was a horror movie until thirty or forty minutes in. That was impressive to me.

There was an eerie theme throughout, but it was the viewer was kept just as much in the dark as Berry’s character. Throughout the movie, the story is told solely from her perspective, and we never learn or see anything that she doesn’t. The suspense builds evenly throughout. We learn very little at first, and even though there aren’t a thousand twists and turns, the unveiling of the story is completely shocking. Every part of the story has relevance but it’s never clear what everything is relevant to. Is Berry insane? Are there ghosts, or is there just bad guys? Was she framed? There is never any official confirmation until the last thirty minutes. Making Berry a psychologist herself was the part that really balanced that whole ideal of confusion. Her character’s ability to rationalize the situation made everything more genuine to the viewer.

The gloom and doom feel of Gothika was always there. Once you are imprisoned with Berry and Cruz the feeling of isolation is overwhelming. The rain, the darkness, and the sterile feeling of the cells leaves little hope, and increases the feeling of solitude and hopelessness. It is a perfect setting for something spooky or frightening to occur.

Gothika was a great modern twist on a mix of supernatural, killers, insane asylums, and the way we perceive our world. I loved the idea that even the most rational person could be swayed to the other side, and even after everything she’d been through, still didn’t clearly allow herself to believe what she’d experienced. It was a very truthful interpretation, and gave even more legitimacy to a story that earned it in spades. Gothika gave spooky and eerie a new definition.

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