Horror dud riffing on the real-life mania that compelled
fabulously wealthy arms heiress Sarah Winchester (Helen Mirren) to maintain constant
construction on the San Jose, Calif., house she lived in over a period of
nearly four decades, a project that ended only with her death. Commissioned by
the board of directors of the Winchester Repeating Arms Co. to assess their
majority shareholder's state of mental health, a doctor (Jason Clarke) with a
turbulent past of his own discovers that Sarah's claim that she and her family,
here represented by her niece (Sarah Snook) and young grandnephew (Finn
Scicluna-O'Prey), are cursed is well-founded in eerie fact. A mash-up of the
haunted house, angry ghost and possessed kid subgenres, co-directors and
brothers Michael and Peter Spierig's film has a little of everything, but none
of it works. The script's peaceable theme — the spirits bugging Sarah were all
killed by Winchester guns — is certainly in keeping with Gospel values,
although aspects of the physician's lifestyle, only hinted at, are clearly
contrary to them.
Watch out for: Occult
themes, gunplay and other stylized violence with little gore, drug use,
implications of promiscuity and possible group sex involving prostitutes, a
couple of profanities, a milder oath, at least one crass term.
Rated: A-III, adults; MPAA:
PG-13
© Arlington Catholic Herald 2018