WINCHESTER REVIEWED
“Winchester” is the story of a house that ghosts built due to repressed gun rage. Well, it’s based on a famous story of a recluse whose husband made money off of firearms sales. The story gets reused a lot in the last 20 years as passive-aggressive spooky fodder for Left-Wing types to work out modern angst. The end result is the structure of a great haunted house story weighed down by personal failings. Would you like to know more?
Somewhere between Stephen King’s partially aborted Rose Red and the Spierig Brothers’ latest attempt to get a mainstream movie budget, we have Winchester. The cast is stellar, the scenery is extraordinary and the plot feels familiar. When we get the jump scares, the victims’ ghosts and the general creepy cache…one has to wonder why? If filmmakers can’t find an interesting approach to the Sarah Winchester cult spookiness, then what is the need to keep returning to the well?
Helen Mirren does her best as a tiny old lady who has regrets. However, everyone else feels like they’re a scream or two away from a James Wan movie. Thankfully, the film plays rather speedy for one of these movies. The only downside is that you’re going to have a teenager or two thinking that anything here was based in reality. Normally, I’d say there was a good movie hidden here, but that movie has already been made. Well, the movie was made twice. Just go watch Thirteen Ghosts.
FILM STATS
- 1 hr and 39 mins
- PG-13
- CBS Films
