Gothika (15)

A good genre film often seems deceptively simple, so it sometimes takes years of watching the inevitable disastrous remakes for the original to be fully appreciated. Die Hard, for example, performed well at the box office, but it wasn't until Under Siege and Passenger 57 shamelessly emerged that critics really started to praise it. Hopefully, then, Gothika will at least help us to re-evaluate the suspenseful What Lies Beneath - as it's not good for much else.

Like What Lies Beneath, Gothika is a supernatural thriller with elements of horror that tells the story of an idyllic family torn apart by a dark secret. Halle Berry plays Miranda, a psychiatrist who spends her life treating female sociopaths at a women's asylum run by her husband (Charles S. Dutton). One cliché-ridden night, she crashes her car swerving to avoid a ghostly girl who appears in the middle of the road, and then bursts into flames. When Miranda wakes up, she's a prisoner in her own prison, and suspected of the bloody murder of her husband.

Miranda remembers nothing about the night, but we know that Halle Berry can't be guilty, so the plot keeps us guessing, presenting a number of potential perps, including Penelope Cruz's histrionic murderess and Robert Downey Jr. as a rather smooth doctor. Red herrings abound, but it's clear that despite the supernatural theatrics there's some kind of real world explanation fuelling the flickering lights and writing on mirrors, and it's actually pretty clear what it is.

All the staples of the genre are present then, but that needn't be a bad thing. The problem is that someone forgot to put the story in. The plot makes no sense, predictably enough, but it would help if at least the scenes made sense. Incredibly, when Miranda wakes up in the cell she doesn't bother asking why she's there. When told that her husband has been brutally murdered she starts crying, naturally enough, yet the doctors that have known and loved her for years take this as a cue to throw her to the floor and sedate her.

This lack of any internal logic prevents us from engaging with the mystery, so the audience is simply left to wait and see what happens. It's not even a pleasant wait, as the film is so graphically violent, with (at least in the screening I attended) a deafening soundtrack of smashes and shrieks, you spend half your time covering your ears. And, to be clear, not because it's scary.

Gothika (what is that title supposed to mean?) aspires to the heights of films like The Silence Of The Lambs and What Lies Beneath, but fails miserably, despite some creepy cinematography and adequate performances. If you value your time, your money, or your hearing, give it a wide berth.