Rating: 
Summary: A FEW CHILLS WITH A DUMB SCRIPT
Review: In this horror/thriller, Halle Berry stars as Dr. Miranda Grey, a Psycologist at a women's prison. Charles S. Dutton is the Prisons Administrator. Or at least I THINK it is a prison as opposed to a mental hospital...it's never really explained and is one of the very mind numbing problems you encounter while watching this movie.Anyway, on her way home from work on a "dark and stormy night" Gray swerves her car to miss a girl standing in the middle of the road. When she approaces the girl to see if she is OK, the girl bursts into flames and Gray wakes up three days later, locked in the very prison she worked at. What's more, she is accused of murdering her husband. OK...now I finad it hard to believe that she would be remanded to a prison IMMEDIATELY...would she not be held in jail to await trial? Would it not take more than a few days for her to be examined by psychiatrists to determine her mental well-being? And even if she was locked up, does anyone think that she would be locked up and put in with the very inmates who she used to work with? Gothika pushes logic to the limits. Well, while locked up she begins getting ghostly visions of this girl. Of course her former co-worker Dr. Graham played by Robert Downey jr., believes these are just delusions. The ghost is more than helpful, twice freeing Gray from her cell so she can pursue clues about the spirit. This leads to the revelation that a man with a tatoo of a woman on fire, is somehow raping women inside the prison and Gray is next on his list. In yet another incredible stretch of logic, while gray escapes from her cell pursued by dozens of guards, she finally makes it to the guard at the front desk who she is friendly with. Rather than turn her in the guard not only keeps quiet, but actually gives her the keys to her car!!! Evidently he seems to have no problem throwing away his car and aiding an escaped inmate. Well the clues all come together and reveal some shocking revelations about her husband and the identity of the rapist. But how can this rapist just come and go into high security areas of the hospital/prison? Don't ask...it's another one of brain dead plot threads. Finally we see that Gray never does go to jail for her husbands murder. Evidently possession by a vengeful ghost is a viable murder defense these days. Incredible. The ghostly images provide a few chills but you've seen the plot before about the dead wanting the living to solve the mystery of their deaths and bring the guilty to justice. Stir of Echoes did it much more skillfully. Berry made a poor choice of scripts to follow up on an Oscar win. There is little suspense and it's very easy to early on to figure out who is rapist. Couple this with one of the dumbest scripts ever and this is one that is worth a rent only.
Rating:
Summary: A Supernatural Thriller Ed Wood Would Have Loved
Review: I know when you go to certain kinds of movies you have to be wiliing to suspend your disbelief in order to be entertained. Not this time. Gothika is a suspense movie with so many holes in the plot that it resembles Charlie Brown's Halloween costume. First things first...the story. Halle Berry plays a woman named Anna who is a shink at a mental institution. She happens to be married to Doug played by Charles S. Dutton who is also her boss. Anna drives home on a rainy night to almost run down a girl. That is the last thing she remembers before she wakes up as a patient in her own institution and accused of murdering her husband. Okay, now, I don't know of any real life examples of this happening but I seriously doubt that if a woman was in that situation they would put her in the same facility where she worked. Most likely she would have been transfered to another facility for her safety. But being held in the facility is conveinent for the plot of this ridiculous story. Another thing about that facility..it's dark and dreary. The exact kind of atmosphere those places try to avoid. It would be well lit. As I said, Anna being held in the facility in which she works provides convienence for the plot. Anna knows her way around and that makes it easier for her to escape. First thing, the guards at this institution are very stupid. They cannot find as she is trying to escape. IN one of the worst scenes in the movie she hides in an indoor swimming pool at night with the lights off. She's in the corner and the cops are looking for her with flashlights and after a few seconds they determine she's not here. No, the did not bother turning on the lights which would make her visible. If anyone in this story were quick witted this would be a very short movie. I'll skip a lot and just say the showdown with the villian is just absurd. This is a mental institution. There is a struggle and a shoot out. Convienently the entire hospital staff disappears for this sequence. This is pretty much a film dedicated with trying to get some cheap scares out of it's audience. You know, owls flying out of nowhere and people reaching out of the dark with loud noises on the soundtrack to increase the shock effect. If you want a good scare the original Dawn of the Dead is now on DVD. And the new one in the theater is good also. But save your hard earned money on this mess.
Rating: 
Summary: Ready for a twist?
Review: Joe H. did an excellent job of summarizing Gothika, so I will just give my 2 cents worth. A little predictable at times, but Halle Berry puts on quite a performance. It's hard to make her not attractive. Even with no makeup and simple clothes, she remains such a beauty. The movie is dark...it's always raining and lights are constantly going on & off which sets the scary mood. Turn off all the lights when watching, sit back and be prepared for a twists that you never thought you'd see coming. Not truly a 'horror' flick, but it did scare the bejesus out of me a couple of times.
Rating:
Summary: Trust me, I'm not crazy. This really was a good thriller!
Review: Sometimes you can listen too much to everybody else's opinions. If I had gone with my own gut instinct to see Gothika in the theater last summer I wouldn't have missed out on a very good film; professional critics can be wrong you know. In any case, now that I've seen it I can't understand why it didn't get better critical reactions. This was a movie well worth the admission price, more so than some that the critics raved about last year. Gothika is a creepy film noir-style thriller about a women's prison psychiatrist, Dr. Miranda Grey, and the events of one night that changed everything. She wakes up in her own ward to discover her husband brutally murdered and herself the suspect under the care of a former colleague played by Robert Downey Jr. She hears and feels the presence of something supernatural harassing her almost constantly. Although in her heart she knows she is sane, she begins to doubt herself as she sees and hears things with no explanation and becomes more and more paranoid. A former patient, Chloe, is a girl who has been telling similar stories all along and now it is starting to look as if she really might have been visited by an evil spirit. So Dr. Grey now has to convince everyone around her, including herself, that what she has been experiencing is not the delusions of somebody in denial. Not easy for an apparent madwoman shrieking in a cell. The most disturbing thing about this story wasn't even the spirit(s) but the way that her friends and coworkers so quickly and completely dismissed her as insane; immediately she was one of "them" and not the person they had worked alongside for years. To me, the greatest source of angst came from her sudden invisibility as a human being. But there is a generous measure of moody terror, and the stark, quiet grayness of the prison halls at night time proved a very effective setting for dread. I was able to feel the chill of the place sitting on my couch at home very nicely. Thumbs up to the director! I can just hear those voices now, complaining that there were some cliches and predictable plot elements. Honestly, I have seen my share of thrillers--I really did not see the plot twist coming. That's a testament to the well-crafted nature of this story. As for cliches, well, nighttime settings with storms and dramatic lightening do make for good visual backdrops for horror films. There's a reason those things became cliches, and that's because they work well. The use of these types of things are forgiveable in my book as long as the rest of the film is effectively done. Yes, other people's opinions are valuable, and other points of view can be enlightening. But sometimes you just know your intuition is the right one even if everybody all around you is screaming the opposite. In this case I know I'm not crazy or stupid; Gothika is a worthy supernatural thriller for fans of the genre. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise.
-Andrea aka Merribelle
Rating:
Summary: Predictable, boring, just plain bad...
Review: The only thing that saved this movie in the least bit was the eye candy that is Halle Berry. But this movie is bad in just about every way imaginable. Aside from having just about every horror cliche in the book (lights flickering when ghosts are near; what is it about spirits that mess with electricity?) there's nothing in the LEAST bit original about any of Gothika. Haunted by a (seemingly) evil ghost, the revelation behind the whole "mystery", the dialogue is atrocious. Just everything. I was pretty much calling all the "moments" before they happened. Every character in the movie is so cardboard and un-realistic too. Both of the great actors in the film (Berry and Downey Jr.) are under exposed. They both feel like, well, themselves trying to play psychologists, just meandering through the film. Even all the "thrilling" moments are done in such a boring, cheesy, and predictable way it makes them completely un-thrilling. The music, which is essential for adding mood in a horror film, is lifeless and adds nothing to the movie. Just plain bad. I'm attempting to save people the experience of this movie.
Rating:
Summary: Liked The Ring? See this!
Review: If you liked the Ring then you've gotta see this. Gothika is an intelligent, at times scary ride with a few curves and detours in the road. Maybe I'm not as astute as some others who have seen this flick, but it kept me guessing pretty much till the end. Like the Ring, the story reveals itself through a series of mysterious circumstances that the main protagonist, Halle Berry, solves with you. Each scene leads to another question that must be resolved. My only negative comment is on Berry's performance. She is not really convincing as a psychiatrist. This is partly due to her stunning beauty which, in this case, is a distraction from her character along with her overly dramatic emotionalism. All in all though, this is a great film and I will actually purchase it on the after market for my personal library... And place it on the shelf right next to The Ring!
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best movies ever
Review: I haven't seen the movie yet, but i'm gonna buy it. But just from seeing the previews i can tell it's a scary movie, believe me i've seen the exorcist. anyway it's one of the best of all scary movies i i've heard of a seen a bit of. and i've seen 4 of 5 worth while seeing movies.
Rating: 
Summary: The Ring Part 2? No.....just a sad parody.
Review: I had high hopes that this would be an original movie, but it turns out that my exitement got the best of me. Ever since The Ring came out, everybody wants to use the "Girl who got killed and decides to help other victims" scenario. I mean this movie is so obvious, that its like a Ring parody. The Ring has turned into The Matrix for horror movies. Everybody wants to use the supernatural girl who had a bad life and turns into a ghost to seek vengeance on her killers while at the same time, helping someone else....much like Bullet-Time in all the recent action movies. Why cant Hollywood be more original? The Matrix and The Ring are probably the two smartest movies in the past ten years, and I can prove it by saying the following thing: THEY HAD A GOOD CONCEPT AND WERE EXTREMELY INNOVATIVE, AND THEREFORE, EVERYBODY WANTS TO COPY IT TO MAKE MONEY AS WELL. The problem with this is simple: Gothika was crap, and the people who wrote it were sell-outs for wanting to make money off of an idea that was already created. This movie could have been so much more, but instead, they went for the easy "surprise" ending that has been used so many times, it cant even be called a "surprise ending." I figured it out within an hour. So theres a guy that rapes girls in mental institutions? Well, heres an idea, DO A DNA TEST!! Yawn. If I wrote this movie, here's how I would do it: Halle Berry is a psychologist who thinks that Penelope Cruz is crazy. Halle is driving home when she sees the blonde girl and crashes her car. Then, we cut to her in the mental institution and see that Halle Berry has suddenly become a crazy person too. But the surprise ending is: HALLE BERRY ISNT REALLY A PSYCHOLOGIST.....SHE REALLY IS AN INSANE PERSON AND THE FIRST 15 MINUTES OF THE MOVIE WERE JUST A HALLUCINATION! Why couldnt they just do that? At least its original and not a Ring rip-off. So all in all, I suggest you see THE RING, the movie that started it all. Its brilliant and is completely original, and is far better than Crapika - Oops, I meant Gothika.
Rating:
Summary: Terrible!
Review: This is a terrible horror movie in which characters must behave like idiots in order for the plot to work. How could Berry waste her new Oscar winner status in this crap?
Rating:
Summary: it's a pretty good show
Review: Gothika is a pretty good horror/psychological suspense show. Mathieu Kassovitz doesn't give us any great surprises (you can figure out what is going on fairly early in the film) plot wise, but he gives some great shots. And Halle Berry gives us some great moments on film. She shows just how great of an actress, just how intense she is. The rest of the cast gives a solid performance. The dvd is a bit sparse. There is the Limp Bizkit video, "Behind Blue Eyes", which is a great song and a very well done video. There is also a commentary with director Mathieu Kassovitz and DOP Matthew Libatique, who actually calls himself a cinematographer on the commentary track. As well he should because the cinematography itself is a character in itself. The lighting, the camera movements, the locations, all add to the atmosphere, more so than in many other movies. The two compliment each other both in filming and in the commentary track.
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