Dark Castle is at it again. After the fun ride that was "House on the Haunted Hill", the shitfest "13 Ghosts" and the “average, although the first 10 minutes rocked!” "Ghost Ship", we’re now slammed with "Gothika". Although this new offspring aimed for a less gory and more mature tone than the other Dark Castle films, the overall result was pretty much the same as their two last genre assembly line products: underwhelming, pedestrian, but with lots of gloss on its pretty “fuck me sideways” face to keep the blood flowing.

"Gothika" had its game on when it came to showcasing some strong acting all around. Oscar winner Halle Berry carried the film admirably and was given able support by Robert Downey Jr. at his charming best and Penelope Cruz in a gritty, yet endearing, part. And was that the great Charles S. Dutton playing Berry’s husband? You bet it was! Even though I didn’t buy their union for a second, I still loved the man to pieces. Now that’s a Grade-A for Ass-kicking cast! The film’s strongest knuckle sandwich was definitely Mathieu Kassovitz’s keen eye though. Every single frame of this trite candy was heavily coated with some type of visual trickery, be it stylish framings, slow motion, fast motion, reverse motion, quick cuts, filters galore…you name it and it was in here in potent doses. So what was "Gothika" missing to come through full blast? Try originality, a strong story and true scares on for size.

Let’s start with the script behind this movie or better yet...the lack of one. The substance in this obvious-on-the-spot-stitch-job was thinner than an anorexic broad chewing on a napkin on a deserted island. The first hour or so of the film tossed in its “Horror Clichés Greatest Hits” CD, played it real loud and tried to pass that off as a genuine narrative. Who you fooling? It takes more than shamelessly stealing horror ingredients from better horror movies and serving them up on a cold plate to involve my stupid ass! Somebody thinks I’m a moron over here! And what happens when a flick has no meat to grind in its grinder? It stretches things out and lags like a sedated turtle. I could actually pinpoint where the movie elongated some of its moments in order to pad up the clock time. Let’s be real here, the tale that is "Gothika" could’ve been told in 15 freaking minutes over a bowl of “Flap Jacks”. The words “I get it, let’s move on already” came out of my yapper many o' times while watching this tramp at work.  

The last nail in this one’s forehead was that when the last half hour finally gave us something more layered than slick macabre imagery to toy with, it wound up being some played-out, leftovers from the “Scream” era. Come on, man! You couldn’t think of something better than this?! Is there a hat somewhere called the “Disposable Horror Film Back-story” bonnet from which studio execs pick out a “reason for the madness” to their vacuous movies? Been there, done that waaaaaaaaaaaay too many times and it wasn’t plausible for shite! And why bring back the much reviled (by me, anyways) “villain self-explanatory, expositional monologue”? I thought we were done with that garbage! You know how it goes-- just in case the viewer is a total clueless idiot-- the baddie explains why he/she/it did it, instead of finishing the damn job. Hey genius! Put your shirt back on (what was that all about?), shut the fuck up and get on with the killing already!

Production on this film was halted for three weeks when Robert Downey Jr. accidentally broke Halle Berry’s wrist.

Its budget was US$40,000,000.