Winchester

Winchester

Starring Helen Mirren, Jason Clarke, Sarah Snook, Finn Scicluna-O'Prey

Directed by Michael Spierig & Peter Spierig

The Story:
In 1906, Dr. Eric Price (Jason Clarke) is sent to San Jose at the behest of the Winchester company to assess the mental abilities of its founder's widow, Sarah Winchester (Helen Mirren), after learning she bought a house and began renovating it day and night in ways that make no practical sense.

Upon arriving, Dr. Price meets Sarah's niece Marion (Sarah Snook) and her son Henry (Finn Scicluna-O'Prey), who has been tormented by an evil presence in the house.  After meeting the reclusive Sarah, she tells him that she's been continually building the house to hold the spirits of those killed by the Winchester Rifle, and there's one specific presence that's stronger than the others, who want to bring harm to Sarah, Marion and Harry.  Dr. Price faces his own demons as he begins seeing things himself, and begins to wonder if Sarah really is seeing something evil that could threaten them all.

The Synopsis:
The horror movie genre often gets a bad rap due to comparing it to other, more sophisticated, genres such as drama.  Yet, there's several amazing horror films out there (one, "The Silence of the Lambs," even won the Big Five Oscars - Picture, Actor, Actress, Director and Screenplay), and a surprising amount of A-list actors and actresses have appeared in them.  Jennifer Lawrence was in "The House at the End of the Street," Ryan Reynolds starred in "The Amityville Horror," Michelle Williams was in "Halloween: H20," and Naomi Watts was in "Shut In."  Then there's big-name stars who got their start in horror: Leonardo DiCaprio was in "Critters 3," Johnny Depp was in "A Nightmare on Elm Street," Charlize Theron was in "Children of the Corn III," and even Tom Hanks got his start in "He Knows You're Alone."

So it's not unprecedented for a famous actor to appear in a horror movie, so having Oscar-winning actress (and living screen legend) Helen Mirren star as Sarah Winchester in "Winchester" isn't out of the ordinary, and it's her presence that salvaged any sort of good will the film produced, because otherwise it was a paint-by-numbers horror film with very little actual horror to be had, except gawking in horror seeing a beloved Oscar winner and another established actor try to muddle their way through it.

Even the directors have a powerful pedigree under their belt.  Michael and Peter Spierig (also known as "The Spierig Brothers") directed two of the most profound, enigmatic pictures in "Daybreakers" and "Predestination" - although, to their lesser credit, they also did direct that awful "Jigsaw" movie.  Unfortunately, "Winchester" falls more on the side of "Jigsaw" than the others, offering no real twists or turns, or even scares for that matter, with the exception of the cheap jump scares you're used to seeing in lesser-quality horror.  In a time where we've been gifted with some truly amazing horror ("The Babadook," "It Follows," "It Comes at Night," "The Witch," "Annabelle: Creation," and "The Conjuring" franchise), "Winchester" will become one of the forgotten relics, sitting dusty on the shelf until someone is planning a party and want to pop in something that can be easily made fun of in a crowd.

It's unfortunate because the true story is far more fascinating than what we were given.  I've always been interested in the Winchester Mystery House, and it's one of my items on my bucket list to go see it before I die.  The story behind it is fascinating as it is mysterious: Sarah Winchester lost her only child in infancy, and then a few years later lost her husband to tuberculosis, leaving her a reclusive loner.  Her husband founded the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, which turned the tide in several wars due to its ability to pack a more powerful punch, and also led to countless deaths.  After her husband died, Sarah relocated to San Jose, where she began construction on the Winchester Mystery House, designing it in a way that made no sense whatsoever (doors that lead to nowhere, staircases that end in walls, winding walkways to nowhere), and she believed that she was being haunted by the spirits of those killed by the rifle.  She believed that they were haunting her and forced her to build continually - there was workers who labored on the construction twenty-four hours a day - because if they stopped working, they would claim Sarah like they took her husband.

While the film hints at this, it's more established that she's building the house to hold the spirits in, while expressing her true grief over their deaths.  It's a less interesting idea than the real story, and I'm surprised they went in that direction.  It would've been more interesting if she was building to keep the spirits at bay - which ultimately is what happens in the film, as she comes into contact with a very angry spirit anyway - but they went in that direction anyway.  There's a lot of leeway that the directors took (Henry, Sarah's nephew in the film, never existed; there was no Dr. Price; some aspects of the labyrinth of the house isn't in-tune with the actual house), and maybe I'm just being nit-picky because I've been enamored with the history of the house for so long, but that's my prerogative.

The majority of the film - to me at least - was insanely boring.  The Spierig Brothers seemed to take all the horror tropes and threw them at an idea wall, and included them willy-nilly throughout the film (oh, this cabinet is rustling, and he's approaching it slowly, I bet absolutely nothing will reach out and grab him!; the mirror keeps turning in one direction by itself over and over, I'm sure when the guy levels it there won't be any nefarious thing appearing there!), making it more silly than scary.  Only when the film ties itself in with the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake (something that damaged the mansion in real life) did the film pick up some steam, but even that steam was just a vapor of what could've been spectacular.

Helen Mirren tried her hardest to make Sarah Winchester appealing, and she really shined despite a lackluster script.  She was poised and powerful, intelligent and ingenious, and the real saving grace of the film.  Jason Clarke was a decent Dr. Price, even if his story was needlessly complex (let's just say there's a particular room in the house that beckons to him more than others, for the most obvious reason), and he played the typical "I want to believe" skeptic.  Sarah Snook (who was a revelation in the Spierig Brothers' "Predestination") was regulated to doting mother background character, while Finn Scicluna-O'Prey did excellent as being the annoying kid in horror movies (put him together with that boy from "The Ring" and the one from "The Babadook" and you've got a trio of horror more scary than any horror movie).  The rest of the characters - even the one who's more than he seems - barely register as blips on the screen.  There's no deep character development or any reason to really care for any of them in the first place, save for Sarah herself, and that's only due to Mirren's natural charisma.

The Summary:
It's a rare thing to take an actual true-life scary story and make it into something completely nonsensical and dull, but somehow that's what the Spierig Brothers managed to do with "Winchester," which would've been a total flop if not for the incomparable Helen Mirren.

The Score: D+