By Garrett Allen
Staff Writer
“Winchester” disappoints with a lackluster performance from Helen Mirren, cheap scare tactics and terrible production, which ruins a great story and leaves viewers wishing for more.
Written and directed by Michael and Peter Spierig, “Winchester” is based on the true story of Sarah Winchester, a woman who, after inheriting the family fortune, believes she is haunted by ghosts who have a score to settle with her family.
In her craze, Sarah began to build a seven-story mansion with hundreds of rooms, trapdoors and corridors to nowhere. Built in San Jose, the mansion gained quite the reputation. Now over 130 years old, the Winchester Mystery House attracts thousands of visitors every year.
Helen Mirren plays a distraught Sarah Winchester, who, to outsiders seems like the looks has simply gone crazy. In the movie, people speculate that her house is just a testament to her madness, but Sarah is actually building an asylum to detain her vengeful ghosts.
While audiences have gotten used to Oscar-worthy performances from Mirren, she lets the viewers down. Fueled by a terrible script, her uninspired rendition of Sarah Winchester fails to capture the audience’s attention, and the film suffers.
The movie was filmed at the Winchester Mystery House, which adds an erie aspect to the setting. Throughout the movie, impressive scenes of the actual trapdoors and hidden corridors installed by Winchester give off the impression of true insanity.
“Winchester” makes a strong statement about America’s gun problem, calling for stricter gun control. While using this opportunity to make a statement about gun control is an excellent idea in practice, the idea is sloppily executed, and it distracts from the movie’s original concept.
“Winchester” is the textbook definition of a stereotypical bad horror movie. With cheesy jump-scares, ghouls that aren’t scary, and moments of suspense that are so bad that they become awkward, any frightening aspect of the movie is canceled out, and the immersion is broken, pulling the viewer back out of the story.
Awful acting, writing and production, make it difficult to stay focused on the story at hand, and the viewer is left confused. Flashbacks and jump-cuts are incoherent and abrupt, and viewers are left in the dark for large parts of the plot.
“Winchester” fails to maintain focus on the plot, and tries too hard to put an emphasis on political messages. The dull performance from Helen Mirren is amplified by the awful writing and cheap production value. Despite a promising concept, “Winchester” ultimately falls short of expectations.
Released on Feb. 2nd, “Winchester” is rated PG-13 and can be seen in theaters nationwide.
Leave a Reply