Madness of Gothika

In bad films psychiatrists are always "brilliant", just as thieves must be "master criminals". So, in Gothika, Halle Berry plays a brilliant shrink who comes to be locked in a mental institution, accused of murdering her husband.

The last thing she can remember clearly of the incident is driving home over a bridge during a freak storm, stopping to help a blonde standing in the middle of the road, and then screaming as the girl bursts into flames. Perhaps, she thinks, something out-of-the-ordinary is at work (told you she had an ice-cool professional brain).

The institution is a cruel place, where nobody has used a light-bulb of more than 40 watts for years. Plus, it's haunted, and dinner never seems to arrive. Luckily, Robert Downey Jr turns up now and again, wearing a stethoscope and a twinkly look on his face. In order to get out, Berry obviously has to solve her husband's murder - and comfort a furious ghost who visits her every night.

The most interesting thing about this clunky, foolish horror flick - in which everybody but the audience is constantly caught off-guard - is Berry's scrappy wig. Whenever an actress is cast to play someone mentally unstable they are more often than not made to wear a bad wig (see Girl Interrupted, in which Angelina Jolie's was orange, though it did win an Oscar).

Penelope Cruz also appears here as a patient with a really peculiar fringe. I merely report this strange trend without much comment beyond how horribly distracting it is.

Gothika
Cert: cert15