• About
  • podcasts
  • Shop

Surgeons of Horror

~ Dissecting horror films

Surgeons of Horror

Tag Archives: jason clarke

How did Winchester offer to scare but vanish without trace?

15 Friday Jun 2018

Posted by surgeons of horror in Movie review

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

angus sampson, bruce spence, helen mirren, jason clarke, sarah snook, sarah winchester, winchester, winchester mystery house

 

On paper Winchester appears to be a delectable proposition for any filmmaker to undertake.
Filled with mystery and intrigue, the infamous Winchester Mystery House is amped with so much ammunition to fire up the fantastical and ghoulish experiences that have allegedly occurred in this historical location and transport to the screen in order to scare the masses.
The tricky part though is in its delivery. Ghost stories have been a difficult medium these days to project on the big screen, unless your name happens to be James Wan or with the possible exception of The Woman In Black starring Daniel Radcliffe, both managing to make empty spaces and the dark fill with fear and dread.
Interestingly, Winchester was first acquired by Hammer films, (the production team behind The Woman In Black), but somewhere along the way it changed hands to CBS Films.

To strengthen the appeal of the film came with the casting of Helen Mirren as Sarah Winchester, who found became incredibly wealthy after the death of her husband with a 50% holding of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company.
Along with this vast fortune though, she became convinced that she and her family were cursed and churn that money into the house by building numerous rooms with doors and stairways leading to nowhere in order to trap and confuse the spirits that found their way into her home.

So, where did the film go wrong?
The problem arises through the films narrative. There’s no story here besides what is printed in the history books and unfortunately it seems that the script writers lacked the imagination to weave any creativity into the real world to create anything presentable to fashion a twinkle of a scare, let alone grip you to the edge of your seat.
Instead we’re presented with a hodge-podge of convoluted storylines that line-up with the individual characters but (much like the great house itself), when combined there is a misconnection and feels tacked on with no rhyme or reason.

The actors do there level best with what they have, Mirren at least looks like she’s having fun in her role, and Australian Jason Clarke manifests as much acting muscle that he can muster with his tortured Dr Eric Price, fighting with a past that haunts him. In doing so, Clarke continues to skirt along the periphery of the film scene waiting for his big break to come.
For the rest of the cast are grossly under-utilised, especially actors Bruce Spence and Angus Sampson (Insidious film series), but none more so than Sarah Snook (The Secret River, Black Mirror) who as far as this writer is concerned deserves greater recognition than she is currently receiving.

Ultimately, the filmmakers try to wrangle every trick in the book that ghost stories of yester-year proved successful.
There’s the haunted house, the possessed child, the medium, and the hero with a problematic past.
The end result, just leads the viewer in the garden house without a plot to string everything together.
The Spierig Brothers have offered so much promise since their directorial debut Undead, and their follow up, Daybreakers, but have since slid into a state of nothingness with the latest Saw instalment Jigsaw and Winchester proving to be mediocre affair. Where they go from here is anyone’s guess.

 

The Diagnosis:
The Spierig Brothers offer too much substance and no collective thoughts in this mis-mangled construction of a movie, that wastes the talent of actors that are on display. It’s a shame, as it could have been so much more, but ends up being more of a whisper than a full-blown apparition of epic proportions.

– Saul Muerte

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016

Categories

  • A Night of Horror Film Festival
  • Alien franchise
  • Australian Horror
  • Best Movies and Shows
  • Competition
  • Flashback Fridays
  • Friday the 13th Franchise
  • Full Moon Sessions
  • Halloween franchise
  • Interview
  • japanese film festival
  • John Carpenter
  • killer pigs
  • midwest weirdfest
  • MidWest WierdFest
  • MonsterFest
  • movie of the week
  • Movie review
  • News article
  • press release
  • retrospective
  • Ring Franchise
  • series review
  • Spanish horror
  • Sydney Underground Film Festival
  • The Blair Witch Franchise
  • The Exorcist
  • The Howling franchise
  • Uncategorized
  • Universal Horror
  • Wes Craven

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Blog at WordPress.com.