The third horror outing from Dark Castle productions (following on from HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL and THIRTEEN GHOSTS) and the first NOT to be a remake, GOTHIKA is a surprisingly serious mental-institute thriller which eschews the rubbery gore and bloodshed of the previous two movies in favour of psychological shocks and a "I'm losing my mind!" scenario. Sadly, the film as a result is rather uneventful, with too much time spent on aimless wanderings through ill-lit corridors and too little plot to carry it through. The final half hour of the film has some neat twists and is pretty eventful, but viewers must endure an hour of tedium before the payoff.Oscar-winner Halle Berry reveals a poor choice in movies (something proved by her turn in the following year's CATWOMAN) and, whilst adequate in this turn, she's hardly outstanding. Penelope Cruz does ugly and is pretty poor, it has to be said. Hats off to Robert Downey Jr who is decent and likable as the chief doctor, whilst ALIEN 3's Charles S. Dutton is excellent in the minor role he inhabits. The only other actor of note is King Theoden, Bernard Hill, but he's wasted in what amounts to little more than a cameo.The most annoying thing about GOTHIKA is the lighting: every shot is dark, punctuated by the flash of broken fluorescent lighting, and the resultant gloom makes the viewing experience a bit of a chore. The horror-movie 'jump' sequences are rather predictable and the film as a whole has a feel of going nowhere. Too many scenes of Berry running through the mental institute seem to use similar, better moments from TERMINATOR 2 as their inspiration, and the mystery and ghostly goings on are kept too subtle, the mystery too inexplicable to care about. Sadly, these negative factors result in a less-than-impressive film; thankfully the guys at Dark Castle went back to the remakes with this year's HOUSE OF WAX.

Matthieu Kassovitz's underrated chiller Gothika is thick with a horror atmosphere that goes straight for the jugular in terms of scares, a psychological ghost story that actually raises hairs a frightens, or at least did for me. It sometimes sacrifices logic for style, but what style it's got! Any horror flick set in an asylum just has to to be cloaked in workable atmosphere to be effective, and this one is positively dripping with it, hence the evocative title. Halle Berry plays a laid back psychiatrist who wakes up one day in the asylum she works at, only now a patient. She's told she brutally murdered her husband (Charles S. Dutton) yet has no memory of the act. As if that weren't a terrifying enough situation for her to be in, she starts having waking nightmares, haunted by a gnarly ghost of a girl (Kathleen Mackey) with mysterious ties to the facility's past. Her colleague and friend (Robert Downey Jr. gives the dour proceedings his usual chipper pep) seems unable to help her. A guard (John Carroll Lynch) is hostile towards her, angry at the loss of her husband who was his friend. An erratic fellow patient (a de-glammed Penelope Cruz) seems to know more than her vacuous babbling would suggest. The asylum Director (Bernard Hill, excellent) is perplexed by the whole situation. It's a twisty funhouse of a plot that probably piles on one stark plot turn too many, they're nevertheless fun to be left aghast by as the rattle by with little regard for plausibility. Berry is convincing in her tormenting position, radiating desperation and resilience that claws at the cobwebs of insanity. Kassovitz piles on the Gothic atmosphere relentlessly, and it really works, until we have a visual palette that looks like the dark underside of Tim Burton's unconscious mind. The ghostly scenes have a threatening, intense edge to them and feel unnervingly realistic, putting us right in the hot seat with wide eyed Berry. Style over substance? Maybe. Okay, probably. But I care not. If the style, composition and palette are enough to draw me into a story, I can roll with it. This one imprints troubling negatives on the celluloid which latch themselves onto your psyche. Maybe it works well because it's got a European director, and they're more in tune with the supernatural in general. Maybe it just does a nice job at being effective horror. Either way, I enjoyed.

Whilst hardly being a very good horror film, it's not exactly the stinker some would have you believe.The problems with it are that it becomes overblown, after initially pulsing away as a very moody and atmospherically tight spooker, set to a superbly eerie asylum backdrop, it gets away from itself in the final third. The makers never quite grasp the concept of keeping the mystery aspects of the plot still cloaked in scary tints. Tech credits are dandy, though an impressive cast list are not asked to stretch themselves. It's not ever overtly frightening and lacks suspense in some key areas, but there's still enough of a creepy vibe here to not waste the time of first time viewers. Repeat viewing prospects, though? Unlikely. 6/10

Saw this on cable. Might be the worst script I've ever read in contrast to the level of talent in this movie. When you can make Robert Downey Jr., Halle Berry and Penelope Cruz look this bad and take name actresses and create an awkward dialogue throughout the movie, you know it has to be putrid.The problem - the story is a random bunch of nonsense that is supposed to come together. Well, it does when it's convenient to the story, which is nothing but "how many red herrings can we create until we get into the big reveal?" The bigger problem: there is no payoff. I won't give away the ending but it's enough for me to say that whatever redeeming aspects about the movie that exist, perhaps some of the atmosphere, is undermined by the colossally stupid payoff.Every time Downey Jr is on the screen, he seems to want to run off and wash the dialogue away. He's clearly trying to get into his character and make the dumb, illogical dialog work, but it doesn't. Cruz doesn't really have much to do and Halle Berry is in just one muddled scene after another with stilted dialogue that is nonsensical. Nobody acts this way, even in dumb horror films. The only thing that kept me watching was that I was working and had it on in the background. The payoff was so bad that I had to roll my eyes and ask whether the writer could have been any lazier. And the answer was "no, he could not be lazier." This is a serious waste of time and you'll regret listening to any of the reviews here that even try to rationalize why you should watch this tripe. Read a synopsis of the film to understand what you're getting into. This is a loser that never should have been made.