Review: Gothika
A thriller / mystery with bits of supernatural horror thrown in.Rating: 6 / 10
Gothika is about Dr. Miranda Grey (Halle Berry). Dr Grey is a psychiatrist at a mental institution (I'm sure there's a more PC term for this) / correctional facility for women. Her husband Doug (Charles Dutton) is the head shrink at the facility, there's also another young doctor, Pete Graham (Robert Downey Jr.), who seems to have a thing for Dr Grey.
The movie opens one dark and stormy night (honest!), where we see Dr Grey having a session with one of the inmates Chloe (Penelope Cruz). Chloe tells of how she gets raped by Satan every night and of how she enjoyed murdering her step-father. This pretty much gives you an idea of the kind of patient the facility holds. It seems Miranda is doing her job but not really listening or believing anything Chloe is telling her.
On her way home that evening she almost runs over a wet, half naked, beaten up girl in the middle of an empty road in the country. There's some weird supernatural stuff, fade to black, and Dr Grey wakes up as a patient in her own prison. She is soon told that she murdered her husband.
The rest of the movie is about Miranda trying to convince people that she's not crazy and trying to work out what girl wants. She realises what it's like for the inmates she has been dealing with when people don't believe what she's saying because she's a mental patient.
The movie uses the standard thriller technique of having everything go quiet before suddenly there's a loud noise and something jumps out at someone. It may be cliche, but it works well enough in making you jump - even if it doesn't do anything to advance the plot. The plot itself isn't too bad, the movie manages to keep you guessing as to the "why" and who exactly is the "bad guy", and by the end it all gets nicely wrapped up, via a few twists, and potentially leaves itself open for more movies. There are a number of plot holes, but really that's to be expected in this kind of film.
The locations and cinematography are pretty typical for this kind of movie, dark, gothic (hence the title), and with fast cuts where required for shock value. As mentioned before, the music is used to lull you into a sense of quiet and safety before something suddenly happens.
This movie is also another example of the great movie rating system in the US, where they'll show a guy getting hacked up with an axe but they won't show you a bunch of naked women in the prison shower scene. To make up for that, here's a scene from Monster's Ball with Halle Berry:
Gothika isn't the kind of movie I'd normally watch as I don't really go for thrillers, but it wasn't too bad - it did make you want to find out how it was going to end. See it on DVD with the lights off for maximum effect.
Gothika will be in cinemas in Australia 29th April, 2004.
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