Gothika (Full-Screen Edition) (Snap Case)

Gothika (Full-Screen Edition) (Snap Case)

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DVD Reviews of Gothika (Full-Screen Edition) (Snap Case)

DVD Review: Abre Los Ojos and Ringu combined.Good thriller despite flaws
Summary: 4 Stars

Miriam Gray is on her way home after a session with Chloe at the Woodward Penitentiary, a correctional facility for women. Seems that Chloe is re-embellishing the images of being assaulted by her stepfather, by saying it is the devil who is doing this to her, and it burns. Miriam is naturally skeptical, as Chloe is dragged away kicking and screaming. Doug, head of the facility and Miriam's husband, explains it by use of of water splashed on a mirror. The distorted image is how Chloe sees herself, but the psychiatrist is able to see the actual person, giving him/her the adventure. That's what the viewer must decide in the omniscient view. What is real and what is not?

Innocuous beginning, right? Cut three days later. Miriam finds herself wearing a blue uniform, lying on a cot in a cell, with a glass door separating her from the hallway. Horror of horrors, she realizes she is now an inmate of Woodward, and it befalls upon Peter Graham, a colleague who had an extramarital crush on her, to inform her that Doug has been murdered....by her! Naturally, she is distraught, as she has no memory of the crime... but Peter thinks she is crazy, as the evidence points out she is guilty. Chloe's words return to haunt her. "You can't trust anyone who thinks you're crazy." Not even Dr. Parsons, another colleague, can help her.

She remembers going home to Doug, yet the last image we see of her was her discovering a strange blonde girl standing drenched in the rain, slash marks across her chest. Could this have anything to do with her?

Miriam discovers what it's like to be an inmate. She is now nobody, and the viewer is given a shot of her from behind, the zip on her ill-fitting blue uniform unzipped. The shower scene with all the woman isn't gratuitous as in those women in prison flicks of the 70's. However, none of those movies ended up with the main character slashing her own arm from a hallucinatory illusion.

This mixes the amnesia and flurry of images of Abre Los Ojos with the supernatural element of Ringu. The jarring hallucinatory images come at a frenzy. Some of them are bloody and violent, the rest involve the appearance of the blonde girl. The movie is coded in the time old classic way--horrible things happen only in the darkly lit scenes. Things begin to get weird when she is attacked by the girl, yet the guards watching the camera think she's trying to do herself in. Hallucination or supernatural? And what do the words "Not Alone" which she sees on the walls and even carved into her arm(!) mean?

And some of the red herrings, the dramatic music that swells up, only to reveal... nothing, do get excessive, so it's as if a gallon of sweat dripped off the movie watcher for nothing. The obligatory chase and escape sequences are somewhat predictable.

The story and premise are intriguing despite the flaws. Halle Berry does a laudable performance as Miriam, someone whose professional and personal life is put through the wringer and has to cope to get to the bottom of things and to determine if she really is sane. But if anyone delivers a performance in this movie it is Penelope Cruz, who alas appears in only a few scenes, but what scenes! After seeing her in Belle Epoque, Woman On Top, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, and Abre Los Ojos, her role as Chloe is a real change from romantic comedies or thrillers where she plays the romantic lead. Her skin is a pasty white here, and in the beginning of the movie, her cropped hair, manic eyes, and broken words, are a real contrast from Pelagia in Corelli. Then again, I wonder if she's finding this repetitive, having appeared in the similar Abre Los Ojos and Vanilla Sky.

The worst character here is Robert Downey Jr. as Peter. He is barely audible in parts and delivers a wooden and not too likeable performance. Still, a potent and gripping psychological thriller.

Description of Gothika (Full-Screen Edition) (Snap Case)