The grief-stricken heir to the Winchester fortune (Helen Mirren) builds a sprawling mansion that is in a state of perpetual expansion. It is full of many rooms and nearly all of them have no rhyme or reason. The board of directors is worried she’s unfit to run the company, so they send a drug-addled doctor (Jason Clarke) to gauge her mental stability. It seems she believes the house is haunted by the victims of her family’s rifles and she is making rooms in the house especially for them. The ectoplasm hits the fan when a spirit possesses her grandchild. The good doctor is then forced to come to grips with the supernatural.
Haunted house movies are a tricky thing to pull off. You can’t make the haunting too sublime or it won’t be scary, and if you really bring on the scares, you have to find a good reason to make everyone stay inside the house. The Spierig (Daybreakers) Brothers seemed to have cracked the code as they waste no time doling out jump scares (including one by a roller skate, which may be a cinematic first) and freaky ghost shenanigans. It helps that the film is based in fact (you can tell they’re riding on the coattails of the Conjuring franchise here) as the real Winchester house has been a tourist attraction for nearly a century.
Another way you can work around the usual haunted house cliches is to set it in a house that has some personality. The Winchester house has that in spades. With its unpredictable architecture, you’re never quite sure what lies around the next corridor, which adds to the fun.
The performances help enormously. Mirren is pitch perfect as the matriarch who tries to keep the spirits at bay. Clarke does fine work too as the skeptical doctor. It was also fun seeing The Road Warrior's Bruce Spence as the wide-eyed butler.
Sure, I’m more of a blood and guts kind of guy, but even I can admit when a PG-13 horror flick gets the job done. It’s got plenty of atmosphere and jump scares, so it’s never boring. All in all, Winchester is an entertaining Spook-A-Blast.
AKA: Winchester Mystery House. AKA: Winchester: House of Ghosts. AKA: Winchester: The House That Ghosts Built.
No comments:
Post a Comment