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Critics Consensus: Berry's acting talents can't save Gothika from its preposterous plot and bad dialogue.
Critic Consensus: Berry's acting talents can't save Gothika from its preposterous plot and bad dialogue.
All Critics (168) | Top Critics (37) | Fresh (24) | Rotten (144) | DVD (17)
A mystery wrapped in an enigma -- an enigma that isn't nearly as clever as the screenwriter seems to think it is.
More of a women's-prison movie than a supernatural thriller, and not a very good one at that.
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.
It's a film about the mind that is totally bone-headed, frequently making serious lapses of logic.
A movie that invariably chooses style over substance and logic.
The most interesting thing about this clunky, foolish horror flick -- in which everybody but the audience is constantly caught off-guard -- is Berry's scrappy wig.
Berry struggles to retain some shards of dignity as she dutifully plods through the contrivances of Gothika.
The same story was told much more skillfully-and with a lot more scares-three years back, when it was called What Lies Beneath.
Grisly, disturbing, extremely violent horror film.
This shoddy B horror movie doesn't deserve a national theatrical run, much less the capable talent assigned to it.
The burning question I'm still asking myself: What does Gothika mean? Now that I think of it: I could care less.
Interesting idea, not quite sure if it works, particularly by the end. Did seem to be a lot of unnecessary running around by Halle Berry. The actually story was quite good, although at times couldn't figure out why the ghost was such a b* to Halle when she was trying to help her. You do find out the connection at the end, and it is horrible. My mother picked this on Netflix to watch and I will admit to some eye rolling, and probably last movie I would have picked (which isn't actually saying a lot), but actually it wasn't entirely awful.
Super Reviewer
Halle Berry and Robert Downing Jr. do well in this moody and atmospheric mystery drama with supernatural overtones as a psych doctor, steeped in logical thinking, questions her belief system (and her sanity!!) when she starts seeing ghosts.
"Gothika" is a well-made ghost story. It doesn't advance the horror art form in any way. But as a traditional ghost story, it's quite effective. I am completely mystified by the critical drubbing it received when it came out. My only explanation is that Halle Berry seems to have been the victim of a backlash from both critics and audiences after winning her well-deserved Oscar about a year before "Gothika" came out. Berry here stars as a psychiatrist who becomes a patient in the hospital where she works after she starts seeing ghosts and then commits a gruesome crime. The story is fairly simple, but it gains some complexity by way of a minor character played spectacularly well by Penelope Cruz. Gradually the disparate threads in the story get woven together nicely. Robert Downey, Jr. also has a nice small bit as one of the psychiatrists with whom Berry works. All in all, a good old-fashioned ghost story that makes for an entertaining DVD night.
A film that isn't highly rated by most, but remains to be one of my favourites and most re-watched films that I own, possibly because it ticks a lot of boxes for me, such as the question of sanity, the setting of a psychiatric hospital, a supernatural element, along with a murder mystery. Gothika has the dark creepy atmosphere, which is maintained throughout the film and a storyline which urges you to feel the frustration of the main characters, played by Halle Berry and Penelope Cruz. Admittedly it has it?s clichéd moments and it?s not without predictability, but it?s certainly worth watching (in my opinion) if you enjoy supernatural Thrillers. 'Behind Blue Eyes' became one of my favourite songs after watching this film.
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