I don't know how Dutton bagged Halle, but something tells me it was a slow day for simultaneous lightning strikes and lottery wins.
Gothika (2003)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:159
Fresh:24
Rotten:135
Average Rating:4.1/10
Consensus: Berry's acting talents can't save Gothika from its preposterous plot and bad dialogue.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for violence, brief language and nudity
Runtime: 1 hr 38 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Theatrical Release:Nov 21, 2003 Wide
Box Office: $59,537,388
Synopsis: A brilliant and respected criminal psychologist, Dr. Miranda Grey (HALLE BERRY) is an expert at knowing what is rational. What is logical. What is sane. Under the direction of her husband... A brilliant and respected criminal psychologist, Dr. Miranda Grey (HALLE BERRY) is an expert at knowing what is rational. What is logical. What is sane. Under the direction of her husband (CHARLES S. DUTTON), the chief administrator of the psychiatric ward at the Woodward Penitentiary for Women, Miranda treats dangerously disturbed patients like Chloe (PENÉLOPE CRUZ), an intensely charismatic murderess whose confessions of satanic torture are dismissed by the judicious doctor as the psychotic meanderings of a paranoid mind. But Miranda's comfortable marriage and stable life are thrust into terrifying jeopardy after a cryptic encounter with a mysterious young girl leads to a nightmare beyond her wildest imagination. When Miranda awakens from the horrific incident, she is shocked to discover that her husband has been murdered - and the bloody evidence points directly at her. Unable to fathom having committed an unmotivated act of such sheer brutality against a man she loved and admired, Miranda suddenly finds herself confined to Woodward alongside the highly unstable patients she used to treat with methodical detachment. With no memory of the night in question except for fractured visions of the hauntingly enigmatic girl, the doctor's behavior becomes increasingly erratic. Her claims of innocence are seen as the beginnings of a deep descent into madness by her former colleagues like Dr. Pete Graham (ROBERT DOWNEY JR.), Miranda's sympathetic but skeptical coworker who is wrestling with issues of his own. Forced to rely on her instincts rather than facts, Miranda begins to believe that she has been possessed by a supernatural force determined to exact revenge at the expense of her sanity. As Chloe draws her deeper into her own personal hell, Miranda must determine if she is being driven to madness…or closer to the truth. Warner Bros. Pictures and Columbia Pictures presents a Dark Castle Entertainment production, Gothika, starring HALLE BERRY. The film also stars ROBERT DOWNEY JR., CHARLES S. DUTTON, JOHN CARROLL LYNCH, BERNARD HILL and PENÉLOPE CRUZ. Gothika is directed by MATHIEU KASSOVITZ and produced by JOEL SILVER, ROBERT ZEMECKIS and SUSAN LEVIN. Written by SEBASTIAN GUTIERREZ, the film is executive produced by STEVE RICHARDS, GARY UNGAR and DON CARMODY. The co-producer is RICHARD MIRISCH. The music is by JOHN OTTMAN; the director of photography is MATTHEW LIBATIQUE, A.S.C.; the production designer is GRAHAM "GRACE" WALKER; and the editor is YANNICK KERGOAT. -- © Warner Bros. [More]
Starring: Halle Berry, Robert Downey, Penélope Cruz, Charles S. Dutton
Starring: Halle Berry, Robert Downey, Penélope Cruz, Charles S. Dutton, John Carroll Lynch, Bernard Hill, Kathleen Mackey
Director: Mathieu Kassovitz
Director: Mathieu Kassovitz
Screenwriter: Sebastian Gutierrez
Studio: Warner Bros.
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Reviews for Gothika
I don't know how Dutton bagged Halle, but something tells me it was a slow day for simultaneous lightning strikes and lottery wins.
Gothika is a classy, dread-filled production populated with an above-average cast and plenty of namesake atmospherics...One of the stronger horror entries of the year.
...an elaborate and hokey grade B thrills-and-chills anemic sideshow...the shock value has all the heft of a nun sticking up her middle finger in anger
Oscar winner Halle Berry and Robert Downey, Jr. help nudge this otherwise routine B-pic about mayhem and murder at the asylum up to B+.
More of a women's-prison movie than a supernatural thriller, and not a very good one at that.
the moment you start rubbing two brain cells together, you might find that "Gothika" could be the first big misstep of Berry's post-Oscar career.
Scriptwriter Sebastian Gutierrez and French director Mathieu (Hate) Kassovitz ... treat this movie with all the subtlety of a Judas Priest music video.
Propelled by too many whoppers to create a believable, and therefore legitimately terrifying, universe.
As Sebastian Gutierrez's script careens from hackneyed endangered-woman situations to loony implausibility and Kassovitz piles up the scary movie cliches, it becomes increasingly difficult to remain absorbed in Miranda's noir nightmare.
It's a film about the mind that is totally bone-headed, frequently making serious lapses of logic.
It's a misleadingly foreboding, cheaply scary and remarkably stupid thriller.
Constantly bouncing from derivative to ridiculous and back to derivative again, Gothika will be tolerable for undiscriminating horror fans but should be shunned by everybody else.
A mishmash of scenes and plot devices culled from recent popular horror-suspense flicks such as The Sixth Sense and Thirteen Ghosts.
Gothika doesn't have much substance, like the ghosts it celebrates, but it does have style.
The big surprise in Gothika is there is no surprise. What it does have is every bad psychiatric, criminal, and horror-movie cliché (including the requisite grey/green caste to every frame), as well as a lesson in how not to make a movie.
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