WINCHESTER (2018)

Studio:      CBS Films
Director:    The Spierig Brothers
Writer:      Tom Vaughan, The Spierig Brothers
Producer:  Tim McGahan, Brett Tomberlin
Stars:     Helen Mirren, Jason Clarke, Sarah Snook, Finn Scicluna-O’Prey, Angus Sampson, Eamon Farren, Bruce Spence, Laura Brent

Review Score:

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Summary:

A supernatural mystery compels a troubled doctor to question whether Sarah Winchester’s mansion might truly be haunted.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

1906 – San Jose, California – Sarah Winchester’s niece Marion Marriott wakes in the middle of the night to discover her son Henry missing from their bed in the Winchester house. Marion finds Henry entranced in a hallway with a sack over his head. Henry points at stairs leading directly into a ceiling and says, “he is coming for us.” Marion and Henry hear footsteps on the floor above them.

San Francisco, California – Arthur C. Gates, Chief Legal Officer of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, recruits widowed laudanum addict Dr. Eric Price to assess Sarah Winchester’s mental health. Arthur explains that the board of directors is concerned because, on the advice of a spiritualist following the deaths of her husband William and only daughter Annie, Sarah insists that construction continue on her mansion 24 hours a day. Arthur adds that Sarah personally requested Eric, despite having never met him. Due to his deep financial debt, Eric reluctantly agrees to take the lucrative job.

Eric arrives at the Winchester house. Marion shows Eric around the estate. Eric also meets servants Benjamin Block and Augustine, as well as construction foreman John Hansen.

While on laudanum in his private quarters, Eric refers to himself as a fraud in front of a locket of his dead wife Ruby. A ghostly reflection in a mirror startles Eric.

Ben summons Eric to dinner with Marion and Henry. At the table, Eric meets Sarah Winchester for the first time.

A bell at midnight wakes Eric from a nightmare involving Ruby. Eric hears strange sounds coming from the Garden Room over the mansion’s communication tubes. A ghostly finger from the tube pokes at Eric, although he does not see it.

Eric is forced to hide under a staircase when he is nearly caught snooping around the house. Another ghost briefly lunges at Eric, but he attributes the vision to the laudanum.

Recognizing it as similar to the one from the home he shared with Ruby, Eric unsuccessfully attempts to get into the locked Garden Room outside. Eric catches Henry when he tries jumping out of a window while entranced with a sack over his head.

The next day, Eric has his first formal session with Sarah. After briefly discussing Henry’s curious condition, Sarah confronts Eric about Ruby’s death as well as Eric’s medication abuse, which he denies. Sarah tells Eric that he will need mental clarity. She goes on to claim that her family is cursed because the Winchesters profited from violence and death, and unfinished business has brought ghosts to her house.

Augustine, who doesn’t answer Eric’s question about why the bell strikes at midnight, confines Eric to his quarters. Eric sneaks out a window to explore the estate once again. Eric spies on Sarah as she draws building plans during an automatic writing trance. Another ghost frightens Eric.

The next day, Sarah asks Eric about his experience of having died for three minutes after being shot by a Winchester weapon. Eric shows Sarah the refurbished bullet he keeps as a reminder.

Sarah explains that the midnight bell summons ghosts killed by Winchester rifles. They then communicate plans to Sarah so that she can reconstruct the rooms where they died, allowing them to enter the mortal plane. However, Sarah can never be sure whom she is speaking with. Sarah claims that the spirit she communicated with the previous night was the most powerful one yet, but it has endangered her family. Sarah adds that Eric will be able to see the ghost too if he can clear his head.

Sarah tasks John with building a Winchester weapons display according to her new drawing.

Eric asks Sarah to elaborate on her experiences with the sprits. Sarah explains that the ghosts get stronger after their rooms are built, which enables them to converse so she can express remorse for their gun deaths and put their spirits at ease. She then tears down those rooms and starts again. Ghosts that refuse to leave are sealed in rooms boarded with 13 nails. Worried that Henry is in danger, Sarah asks for Eric’s help with the current presence.

Eric tries talking to John about Sarah’s state of mind. John refuses to allow Eric into the sealed Garden Room.

Eric visits Marion and Henry in their room. Eric and Marion discuss the supposed Winchester curse. Eric mentions his wife’s struggle with mental illness. Henry suddenly goes missing.

Entranced, Henry retrieves a rifle and fires at Sarah several times. Henry hits Sarah with the butt of the gun when he runs out of bullets. Eric and Marion wrestle Henry away from Sarah.

Sarah sends the rest of the staff away from the house and orders John to seal Henry’s door with 13 nails. Eric protests that Henry must be taken to a hospital while Sarah insists that the boy needs to remain in the house so they can banish the presence. Marion sides with Eric. Sarah warns that the shadows will only follow them if they try to leave.

Eric calls Arthur to arrange transportation to the hospital. Eric then has a conversation with Ben about the house’s ghosts. Ben suddenly morphs into a ghastly visage.

Beginning to believe Sarah is telling the truth, Eric asks her about Ben. Sarah reveals that Eric is actually seeing the ghost of a confederate soldier who died 20 years earlier. Enraged when his two brothers were killed by Winchester rifles during the Civil War, Ben donned a sack mask and went on a shooting spree inside the Winchester general offices. After killing 15 people, Ben locked himself inside a display room where he was ultimately gunned down. Sarah adds that Ben will be at his most powerful at midnight.

Sarah takes Eric to the recreated display room she had John construct. Sarah calls for Ben to leave the house with his brothers. Paranormal activity coincides with the 1906 San Francisco earthquake to begin tearing the mansion apart. John is supernaturally pulled away and dies underneath a crumbling rampart. Eric is also pulled away and separated from Sarah by fallen debris. Eric sees nails falling to the floor from the boarded up rooms.

After the quake subsides, Marion begins a search for Henry. Marion finds Augustine’s corpse buried beneath rubble.

Eric makes it inside the Garden Room where he relives his mentally disturbed wife’s suicide and attempt to shoot him. Ruby’s ghost then tells Eric to let go of his guilt. Eric rises to confront more of the house’s ghosts, who point him toward the staircase that ends in a ceiling.

Eric breaks into the room above the staircase. He finds Sarah sitting with a Winchester rifle. Sarah explains that Eric is connected to the house because he was killed by a Winchester weapon, even though he was revived.

Elsewhere in the house, Marion finds her son entranced. Ben’s spirit leaves Henry to possess Sarah upstairs.

Sarah fights against the possession. Sensing that Ben’s spirit is afraid of something in the room, Sarah concludes that Ben fears the rifle he used to kill his 15 victims. Eric retrieves the rifle. The bell strikes midnight. Paranormal activity disrupts the room as Ben’s ghost confronts Sarah.

Sarah realizes Ben is actually fearful of the refurbished bullet carried by Eric. While the ghosts of Ben’s brothers creep toward Marion and Henry downstairs, Sarah summons Ben once more. All of the rifles in the room rise into the air as Ben’s ghost takes aim at Eric. Eric uses his bullet to fire at Ben and vanquish the three Block brother ghosts. Sarah instructs the other ghosts to return to their rooms, which they do.

Sarah, Eric, Marion, and Henry regroup outside in daylight. Eric later sends his evaluation to Arthur Gates with a conclusion that Sarah is of sound mind and body. Sarah releases keepsake locks of her daughter’s hair into the wind.

Eric visits the Garden Room one last time before its dismantling begins. After he says goodbye to Marion, Sarah tells Eric that Ruby still loves him. Before Eric leaves, Sarah tells him that she will rebuild her damaged home.

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Review:

The true story of Sarah Winchester tells us that the rifle company matriarch went a little mad following the deaths of her husband and daughter. Sarah supposedly sought counsel from a psychic who convinced the wealthy woman that the spirits of those killed by Winchester weapons were haunting her home. Curing the curse meant keeping the San Jose estate in a perpetual state of illogical construction, erecting a labyrinthine mansion with doors leading to nowhere and endlessly rebuilt rooms with no practical use.

Building off this background, the fictional side of the “Winchester” film follows Dr. Eric Price, a therapist hired by Winchester Company directors to evaluate Sarah’s mental fitness. Disturbed by demons of his own, specifically a laudanum addiction as well as the tragic death of his wife, Eric finds kindred spirits of sorts in the house’s peculiar denizens.

Sarah’s niece Marion Marriott has no idea what to do with her son Henry, who regularly wakes in the middle of the night to sleepwalk with a sack over his head. A pair of servants and a construction foreman conspicuously dodge Eric’s inquiries about possible paranormal activity on the property. Then there is Sarah herself, whose automatic writing trances and clandestine errands further suggest something strange is afoot.

“Winchester” bats briefly at the usual ball of “is she crazy or is the house really haunted?” exposition. Like a bored cat, the plot mostly drops this tired yarn, getting going instead with a gothic ghost story that puts Sarah’s extended family in supernatural danger. A secret in Eric’s past connecting him to the Winchester rifle ghosts turns out be the key that could unlock this mystery.

While Sarah Winchester constructed her mansion according to whims, risks, and otherworldly influences, “Winchester” builds itself from a black-and-white haunted house horror blueprint. This in turn means every store-bought scare one can think of finds its way onto the film’s grocery list. That list includes, but is not limited to, a mirror reflection fright, a hand darting from nowhere, and bending quietly toward another sudden boo, all of which are of course accompanied by the sound of a bowling ball dropping on piano keys. Did I mention the possessed little boy singing a creepy little ditty?

Being a mainstream multiplex drop, “Winchester” knows it needs only a minimal amount of creativity. The script even recognizes where its thorns are poking, yet also realizes there’s little point in plucking them when it can rely on atmosphere to cancel its lack of ambition. Nowhere is this better evidenced than when Marion and Henry are caught in the climax without reasonable roles, resulting in an inconsequential B-plot clearly considered as an afterthought cutaway. “Winchester” wants to be a spookshow above a complicated campfire tale, and isn’t ashamed to admit it.

If you’re going to have anyone paint a pedestrian project by its numbers, The Spierig Brothers are at least the right duo to recruit for the job. As they did with “Jigsaw” (review here), Peter and Michael Spierig again demonstrate their skill at taking standardized scary movie setups and using cinematic style to make them seem fresher than they have any right to be. “Winchester” puts a TV movie script into a feature film frame, but reaps the eye candy benefits of a multimillion budget and bright shine of Helen Mirren’s star.

As elegantly engaging as ever, Mirren fulfills every expectation for her intelligent horror heroine. In fact, the fundamental fault of “Winchester’s” foundation is that it isn’t built on her POV. Sarah Winchester has the more compelling presence, yet the story centers on imaginary Eric Price. Jason Clarke fits the bill fine as the second star, though his typically tortured, drug addict doctor grieving his wife’s death has one too many clichés undercutting his appeal. Particularly when he has to match his charisma against that of Ms. Winchester and her house, which is certainly a character all its own.

Sticklers for detail will be pleased to know that the look and feel of the actual mansion is duplicated down to each nail. Portions of the movie were shot at the Winchester Mystery House as well as on a soundstage recreation. Interior photographs are not normally allowed for visiting tourists, but what does appear on the screen matches my memories of a Winchester visit in 2015. If nothing else, the unusual structure’s unique history lends it a large leg up against fictional haunted home counterparts.

Anybody who has seen just one eerie old mansion movie will experience dizzying déjà vu during drawn out sequences of tiptoeing down lantern-lit hallways or other scenes of commonplace creeps. But “Winchester” makes treading trodden trails worth the trip by entertainingly exploiting its true events connection, sumptuous production design, and mesmeric leading lady to moodily maximum effect.

Review Score: 60

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