Gothika
IMDB Rating: 5.70, 20650 votes
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Taglines
- Because someone is dead doesn't mean they're gone.
- Dr. Miranda Grey Is An Expert At Knowing What Is Rational, What Is Logical, What Is Sane... Until The Day She Woke Up On The Other Side.
- Not Alone.
Storyline
A criminal psychologist (Berry) awakens to find herself a patient in the institution where she works, with no memory of the murder she's accused of committing. As she tries to regain her memory - and her freedom - a vengeful spirit manipulates her.
Actors
| Dr. Douglas Grey | Charles S. Dutton |
| Miranda Grey | Halle Berry |
| Pete Graham | Robert Downey Jr. |
| Sheriff Ryan | John Carroll Lynch |
| Phil Parsons | Bernard Hill |
| Chloe Sava | Penélope Cruz |
| Teddy Howard | Dorian Harewood |
| Irene | Bronwen Mantel |
| Rachel Parsons | Kathleen Mackey |
| Turlington | Matthew G. Taylor |
| Joe | Michel Perron |
| Tracey Seavers | Andrea Sheldon |
| Glass Cell Nurse | Anana Rydvald |
| Inmate | Laura Mitchell |
| Inmate | Amy Sloan |
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Posted in: 2003, Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Tagged: axe, bathtub, blackout, blood, blood splatter, brake failure, bridge, burning man, car, car wreck, cell block, circumcision, co worker, computer, covered bridge, criminally insane, dead girl, dead husband, death threat, defense attorney, distorted, doctor patient relationship, dream, falsely accused, fart scene, female doctor, female nudity, flashback sequence, fugitive, gas explosion, ghost, ghost story, heavy rain, hospital gown, illusion, intimidation, marriage, memory loss, mental institution, mental patient, mirror, murder, nervous breakdown, newspaper clippings, nurse, owl, penitentiary, person on fire, photograph, police station, possessed, possession, prison escape, psychiatric hospital, psychiatric ward, psychiatrist, psychopath, public phone, rape victim, reporter, repressed memory, road accident, roadblock, secret room, security guard, self mutilation, serial killer, sheriff, shot in the forehead, shower scene, speeding, spontaneous combustion, supernatural, swimming, swimming pool, syringe, tattoo, thunderstorm, trapdoor, twist in the end, umbrella, underwater scene, video, video camera, vision, women's prison
2 Comments
One of the better horror movies I’ve seen
In this day and age, sex sells. This movie was just a chance for brand new sex bomb Halle Berry to run around in tight tee shirts and shake what her mama gave her. This fairly decent horror flick hits the screens and delievers a horror movie that may actually scare some people and have a decent story attached to it. Now that is something you dont see every year!
Gothika starts out at a mental institution where Miranda (Halle Berry) is working with her patient Chloe(Penelope Cruz). She packs up for the day, heads home and gets into an accident. The next thing she knows she wakes up in the mental hospital not as a doctor but as a patient. The rest of the film is dedicated to the search for why she is being held as a prisioner as well as what has been going on with Chloe and in the hospital in general. Some very interesting things were found and it makes for a pretty good story.
Now I have to give credit where credit is due. The movie had substance and certainly more than the other movies released by Dark Castle (House on Haunted Hill, Thirteen Ghosts, Ghost Ship). All these movies had decent horror ideas but came horribly short with weak story lines and horrible endings. Even though Gothika is the best of the bunch the elements that made the other movies fail are evident in this movie.
Many of the scary scenes in Gothika are more physiological than psychological. There are one or two genuinely scary moments but the rest is just making people jump by having birds fly at them. I felt that this was the movie’s shortcoming only in the fact that they had great ideas and actually used the ideas introduced in the movie to scare people but old Castle Rock habits die hard and it shows.
Moving on, Halle Berry’s character, Dr. Miranda Grey, was overall good but inconsistent at times. Halle Berry is normally an excellent actress but due to the combination of writing and the producers even she couldn’t cover the gaps in character. I dont think a fully loaded cement truck with a regiment of construction workers could have filled the gaps but that’s besides the point.
On a positive note Penelope Cruz’s performance as "Chloe" the patient of Halle Berry was excellent. Her character added a hint of mythology and religious reference which when used correctly can be scary, especially to all those God fearing Catholics. I believe that Penelope Cruz took the role and not only nailed the performance, she made the part better than the writers could have conceived.
Overall, if you go to the movie with an open mind and no expectations you will enjoy the film. It is good for a little scare and a little fun. Its certainly not a waste of time but the horror genre of film is a very difficult thing to really nail on the head but considering this is probably the best Castle Rock film to date its moving in a positive direction and who knows maybe one day we will actually get a movie that had the shock value of The Shining when that first hit the silver screen.
Predictability Yet Again
Having said that it was predictable, I will admit that it was actually pretty good, with a few scenes that left me feeling uneasy.
Halle Berry plays a psychiatrist who, after wrecking her car one night and confronting an eerie stranger in the road, wakes to find herself on the other side of the mental hospital walls. The movie is about her conquest to find out how she got there and what exactly happened that rainy night.
The movie also stars Charles S Dutton, Robert Downey Jr, and Penelope Cruz (who plays an exceptional crazy lady, if I may say so), all in very instrumental supporting roles.
It’s hard to divulge details about this movie without giving away the farm, so I won’t. You’re just going to have to check it out for yourself!
I am a die-hard fan of movies that make my skin crawl, and this was definitely one of them. There were a few scenes that left me squirming in my seat, which makes this movie, in my opinion, a must-see.