Review: Winchester

Image courtesy of CBS Films.

Much like the famously haunted house in which it is set, The Spierig Brothers' "Winchester" is occasionally creepy, but mostly creaky, due to the horror movie cliches in which it abounds and the overabundance of jump scares, my least favorite modern element of the genre.

In fact, the most interesting element of the film is the house itself, which in this film is the home of Sarah Winchester, the heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune. Appearing larger than Buckingham Palace and filled with labyrinthine, maze-like corridors, the house is a marvel, and the filmmakers do a decent job of showing how one could get lost in it.

It also helps that the great Helen Mirren plays Sarah. Much like many lauded thespians of her era - I'm thinking Anthony Hopkins and Judi Dench - Mirren has no problem hamming it up now and then and, here, she brings a presence to the film that keeps it intermittently interesting. As the film opens, a doctor named Eric Price (Jason Clarke) is approached by a board member of the Winchester Repeating Arms Co. who believes that Sarah has lost her marbles. He tasks Price - who is in debt and addicted to laudanum - with giving Sarah a psychiatric evaluation to determine whether she is of sound mind to continue running the company.

Nearly from the moment that Price arrives, strange things begin to occur. Creepy faces pop up in mirrors and strange sounds - and even a finger - emanate from holes in the wall. But Price is a man of science and is skeptical when Sarah tells him that the souls of those who died at the hands of Winchester rifles haunt her house, threatening her, her niece (Sarah Snook) and that woman's young son. The question as to why a young boy would remain in a house possessed by vengeful demons is one not pondered much here.

Of course, as time goes on, Price comes to believe in the ghosts haunting the Winchester house, and a a demon of his own regarding his deceased ex-wife also comes to the surface. Eamon Farren - who was so heinously good on "Twin Peaks" last year - pops up as a creepy butler who might have something up his sleeve, while eerie sequences of men working round-the-clock on the house are, at first, inexplicably creepy, before we find out the true purpose of the work.

The Spierig Brothers were previously responsible for "Predestination," a surprisingly engrossing low budget sci-fi thriller from a few years ago, and "Jigsaw," which I skipped because, honestly, how much can one viewer take of that series? "Winchester" is a mostly forgettable, albeit old fashioned, throwback to the haunted house movies of yesteryear, but with one too many jump scares. Mirren is always worth a look and there are a few genuinely spooky moments, but the picture otherwise fails to distinguish itself from any number of other haunted house movies.