Terror is Building.

This review contains spoilers. 

"Winchester" appeared to come out of nowhere; its teaser trailer was released in October, and its first official trailer arrived in January. It is rather odd that a horror film starring Helen Mirren had such little buzz until a couple of weeks ago. After watching the film though, it has become clear why "Winchester" has been kept under wraps - it is not very good at all. Such a generic and cliche story is told about an elaborate and twisted (literally) house; "Winchester" is a missed opportunity. I thought the year's worst horror films are usually released in January? Well, Lionsgate and CBS Films have saved this one for February. 

The reason why I, and probably the majority of this film's audience, was interested in seeing "Winchester" was because it starred Helen Mirren; Mirren is an acclaimed actress who usually only associates herself with good projects, and the thought of seeing Mirren in a horror setting was pretty exciting. It was disappointing to find out that Mirren plays a supporting role, considering she has featured prominently in the marketing campaign. It was a mistake for the film to tell this story from the perspective of Eric (Jason Clarke) as Mirren's Sarah is a much more interesting and complex character. This would have allowed the film to thoroughly explore the misery, paranoia and fear that Sarah feels living in the mansion. Instead, Sarah is only known to the audience as a possibly crazy, strict old woman who lives in a haunted house. How did Helen Mirren find herself in such a bad film? Well, her role size would not have demanded that many shooting days in comparison to her co-stars and she has revealed in interviews that she was fascinated by the mystery of Sarah Winchester. It takes a little while for Mirren to make her first appearance and she is introduced with a hilariously fitting line that states she will be arriving soon for dinner; in other words, Mirren will soon be arriving on set. Mirren's performance is the best thing in this movie. She has some terrible lines which she is obviously not to blame for, the writers are. She appears to put maximum effort into her performance despite following a script and direction that is inferior to her talent. Unfortunately, after this film, no studio is going to want to touch the Winchester property for a long while, and if they do, Mirren's perfect casting (she does resemble the real Sarah Winchester) will not be an option.

While Mirren does all of the heavy-lifting, the rest of the cast is a perfect fit for such weak material. Jason Clarke's Eric is introduced to the audience as a drunk bachelor; I'm not too sure how the film expected the audience to connect to this character. Clarke's performance is mostly bland and wooden. He is never outright awful but does nothing exciting with the role. Clarke should have had some emotional scenes but does not capture any emotion in his performance. Sarah Snook does appear to try her best but often comes across as if she is trying too hard. Finn Scicluna-O'Prey plays Henry, the son of Marian (Snook) and alas, there is finally a child actor who undoes the good the current young stars of Hollywood have done with their performances in films such as "It" and "Room". Scicluna-O'Prey's performance is terrible; he is incapable of making creepy faces and cannot sing a song chillingly. His performance made me appreciate the likes of Tabitha Bateman in "Annabelle: Creation" so much more. All three of these characters are hard to like and instead of a film about Helen Mirren, "Winchester" is an ensemble piece where three-quarters of the leads are repellant and bothersome. 

A story about the Winchester mansion does appear promising; there are many directions a writer could take the narrative. However, "Winchester" almost replicates the plot of "The Woman in Black" but is never as good. Firstly, it is not clear why Eric is visiting the mansion; to assess Sarah's mental state? Or to investigate paranormal activity? This would have been resolved if the script directly addressed Eric's job before he is hired to visit Sarah. This is just one example of how thinly written the characters in "Winchester" are. The film's opening scene sees Henry get possessed, walking around with a bag on his head. This moment was laughable and added nothing to the plot. A better choice for the opening scene would have been the death of Marian's husband which is referenced throughout the film. As the narrative unfolds, "Winchester" becomes an unoriginal haunted house movie that is not very haunting. The script is full of cringe-worthy and inherently awful lines. 

"Winchester" reaches its climax in the final act, revealing the mysteries. However, other than one plot twist, the secrets of the mansion were pretty obvious and self-explanatory; Sarah is not crazy, it is actually a haunted house. To the film's credit, the plot twist was unexpected; looking back, there were slight hints as to what was going on, so it was not one of those unexplainable, absurd surprises. It is revealed that Ben Block (Eamon Farren) is not one of the house's workers but is actually a ghost who has unfinished business with Sarah Winchester. Other than Farren's ridiculously bad accent (where was he supposed to be from?), this was surprising and added pumped some needed energy into the narrative. "Winchester" has a very blatant anti-gun message; fitting commentary is made about the usage of them (e.g. are the makers of guns as bad as those who fire them?). However, I did find this contradictory at times as it is ultimately a bullet that resolves the issue. The final act loses momentum pretty quickly as it skims over plot holes and more terrible dialogue is spoken. For example, the doors containing all of the angry spirits open but there is no sign of any angry spirits, just ones that are willing to help Eric. There also seemed to be an endless supply of nails as Sarah demands things to be bolted shut light, right and centre. "Winchester" crosses into so-bad-its-good territory so many times. My favourite moment was when it was revealed that at midnight each night, the spirits communicate to Sarah the type of room they would like designed for them to return to the world. This development was foolish and stupid. I also enjoyed the moment where Sarah tells all the spirits to go back to their rooms. "Winchester" does nothing creative with the mansion and fails to add to the mythology; If an audience member going in is aware of Winchester, the mysterious mansion, they will leave the cinema none-the-wiser. 

"Winchester" also lacks effective frights. The film does attempt to scare the audience countless times but there was only two jump scares that caught me off guard. The first was when Henry starts shooting at Sarah; this was one of the few moments that used the odd structure of Winchester well and it did feel as if Sarah was in danger. The second was when Ben's face suddenly becomes gruesome and sinister. These two moments are outweighed by a manifold of predictable, formulaic and ineffective jump scares. "Winchester" could have been improved massively if it had felt more atmospheric. The lighting choices were too bright, and the score added nothing. If "Winchester" was going to follow the narrative of "The Woman in Black", it should have also mirrored the same stylisation and tone too. Production design should have been an area where this film excels yet it was very basic and lacklustre. "Crimson Peak" is a great example of how this film should have looked. As well as a bad script and poor performances, "Winchester" fails to create a tense and chilling mood. 

"Winchester" will likely make an appearance on many 'worst of 2018' lists, including mine. It is quite inexcusable for a film based on such an intriguing real-life mansion that stars Helen Mirren to be this poor. If you look up 'missed-opportunity' in the dictionary, you will find "Winchester" as the definition. The production design is rudimentary, the script is mind-numbingly awful, and aside from Mirren, the cast is insipid. "Winchester" has enjoyable moments...which are enjoyable for all the wrong reasons. A surprising twist and the talent of Helen Mirren cannot save "Winchester" from being nothing but a discounted version of "The Woman in Black". 

35

/100

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