Review of "Gothika" (2003) DVD

"Are you scared? Well, you should be," Penélope Cruz tells co-star Halle Berry in Gothika. The only thing missing is the beat, and then: "You're on Scare Tactics!" But Cruz can console herself with other fun lines such as, "He opened me like a flower of pain." Of course, Charles S. Dutton has the best one: "You can't discharge her period!" I think there was supposed to be pause in that sentence, but maybe Chucky was just having some fun in an otherwise thankless and dismal role.

When I first reviewed Gothika prior to its big screen release, I gave it a marginal thumbs-up -- if you liked the other Dark Castle films. Now watching it again on DVD, all I can say in my defense is: Someone must have spiked my popcorn! I must have been in a particularly magnanimous mood the day I wrote that review, because The House on Haunted Hill looks like an Oscar winner when compared to Gothika.

Director Mathieu Kassovitz did The Crimson Rivers, a serial killer yarn that wowed the critics a couple of years ago, and headlining star Halle Berry is a real-live Academy Award-winning Best Actress. No slouches themselves, costars Robert Downey Jr. and Penélope Cruz are both friendly with various awards (Downey, Jr. was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for Chaplin, and Cruz won a Goya for Open Your Eyes). So what are they doing associated with this dreck?

Perhaps the director and DP commentary might shed some light: "We invented the movie while we were prepping it," and "Nobody knew what they were going to be working on before they got there" (direct quotes from Kassovitz). Screenwriting credit goes to Sebastian Gutierrez, who recently had a box office bomb with The Big Bounce.

The story of Gothika is crazy -- but lurid fun, if you go with it: Berry plays a psychologist to the criminally insane who wakes up after a car accident inside the self-same psych ward she once supervised. Her husband (Dutton) has been brutally and bloodily dismembered, and the waif-like ghost of a blonde teen is stalking the good doctor. So what's a girl to do? She befriends a teary patient (Cruz) who claims that she's being raped by the devil, and she tries to convince her skeptical friend and former colleague (Downey, Jr.) that she is not insane. With the words "Not Alone" carved on her arm and her penchant for talking into mirrors, she has her work cut out for her.

Gothika is somewhat entertaining in it's badness. I had more laughs with it than I have with some of the comedies I've reviewed lately. The oft-repeated refrain, "Doug is dead, Doug is dead," soon twisted itself in my mind as, "Ding dong, Doug is dead!" And when Berry's character effectively hides herself at the bottom of a clean, well-lit swimming pool, I hope that you too are howling with laughter. While laughter may not be the filmmaker's intention, healthcare professionals have proven it is good for you.

Additional features on the DVD include commentary from the director and DP (who never once explains why so many of his shots are soft, but crows proudly at his more beautiful compositions), and an inexplicable music video from Limp Bizkit, trying and failing to cover The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes".

Review by Staci Layne Wilson for Horror.com