We all fear to become what we criticise – it’s an inherent anxiety embedded deep in our consciousness, a desire to acknowledge those who pose danger in order to prevent ever becoming akin to them in any way. It’s a philosophical concept that has been explored often in both fiction and documentary works, and bears a lot of relevance to discussion on our innate avoidance of certain changes in our lives, which can occur quite unexpectedly. This idea is the starting point to our discussion on Gothika, a film that has been reviled for over two decades, with many viewing it as the very definition of horror filmmaking that aims for the low-hanging fruit, choosing to pander to the most obvious of ideas while refusing to do anything deeper than the most surface-level shocks and thrills imaginable. The film tells a relatively simply story, following a therapist who works in a psychiatric facility, but awakes one day having been admitted into the hospital after being falsely accused of the brutal murder of her husband – and using her knowledge, resources and her steadfast desire to prove her innocence, she defies authority and goes in search of answers, which unearths some sinister secrets that she could never fathom as being true until they become the key to unlocking this mystery and revealing that not only is she entirely innocent, but that there are those in close proximity that are far from what they appear. Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz in his first foray into English-language filmmaking, Gothika is a peculiar film, but one that we can acknowledge as having received slightly too much disdain over the years, particularly since some aspects are certainly worth our attention, even if the overall film can struggle to form an identity.

The premise of Gothika is by far its most valuable and interesting element, and is the source of much of the potential the film had at the start. The idea of an intelligent, level-headed psyciatrist suddenly being admitted to the same facility where she works, and forced to be placed alongside the patients that she had formally viewed as nothing more than subjects of her professional work is very ambitious, and we can understand why everyone involved in this film would be attracted to the material, especially since Sebastian Gutiérrez seemed like a promising young authorial voice, having written and directed a couple of well-received B-movies in previous years, and seemed to have a handle on the genre as a whole. The thematic content of the film is not the problem, since it does have the capacity to make some interesting observations – primarily, the subject of the industry that supposedly treats mental health, but in reality often views those with various conditions as test subjects, people who merely exist as a series of statements in a notebook, possessed by individuals who use them to promote their ingenuity rather than providing them with the help and guidance that they need. This isn’t the core of the narrative, but it is one of the many insightful elements that does make Gothika seem like a far more layered, complex film. Structured as a blend of mystery and horror, where the two genres interweave to create an enigmatic puzzle of a film, it approaches certain subjects with the intention of unearthing their secrets in a simpler way. Whether or not it is effective is entirely up to individual interpretation, but it clearly built itself from a strong, solid conceptual foundation that we can acknowledge as being inherently quite valuable in itself.

In retrospect, it’s absolutely bewildering that a film by a director who had not yet worked in the United States (and whose previous films were well-received, but were far from enormously successful in the way we’d expect) with such a strange premise would be able to attract a cast of this calibre. The film was anchored by Halle Berry, who was cast in an effort to make this a starring vehicle as part of her ascent to one of the foremost leading women in Hollywood at the time, with her inherent gifts and incredible magnetism on screen making her wildly popular and someone whose talents were often not utilised as far as they could have been. Unfortunately, she is occupying the role of a more reactionary character, someone who doesn’t have much complexities of her own but instead serves as the level-headed anchor through which we see all the events of the film, with the more interesting characters coming in the form of the supporting cast, which includes some truly remarkable actors. Amongst them are Robert Downey Jr. as the protagonist’s friend and colleague who is put in the difficult position of treating her after she is admitted, and Penelope Cruz as the sinister young woman who the protagonist believes is beyond insane, but in reality is far more logical than anyone is willing to admit, and who ultimately proves to be the catalyst for several of the film’s more challenging moments. Character actors like Charles M. Dutton, Bernard Hill and John Carroll Lynch all have key supporting parts that move the film along, and I’d argue that Gothika could have been a much better film had it actually had the foresight to examine these characters rather than just restricting itself to the same tropes that ultimately define the genre, but very rarely add much nuance to this film.

The areas in which Gothika falters are clear from the start – there is a problem with consistency, and this is not a film that understands exactly what it wants to be, even when it isn’t particularly complex or intending to push boundaries. There are moments where it borders on incoherent, which is likely the result of a lot of material being excised in the editing process. At a mere 90 minutes, the brevity of Gothika is both a blessing and a curse – it doesn’t overstay its welcome, but this is a feature that comes about as a result of a very clear lack of continuity or any awareness of how the story unfolds. Not only does it focus on the narrative elements that are less interesting than others, but it also doesn’t quite understand how to evoke much atmosphere, the entire tone bordering on unintentionally comedic rather than terrifying. The closest the film comes to genuine horror is actually a moment that doesn’t contain anything relating to ghosts or supernatural possession, but rather a scene in which Berry’s character unearths a video of her husband engaging in depraved activities, with the words “it feels good to be a god” being far more unsettling than anything else in this film – and while we could view this as a purposeful statement on the fact that the true monsters are the seemingly moral, present people who are secretly the most despicable, and where the beings we fear are the truly good ones, the rest of the film doesn’t quite reflect this sentiment, leading to the entire story feeling somewhat bland and uninspired, especially throughout the third act, where the mystery falls apart and descends into the most predictable, hackneyed set of conventions imaginable, which is an enormous disservice to some of the very strong ideas situated at the heart of the film.

Gothika is certainly a film that is about as deep as a puddle, and doesn’t do much in terms of challenging the conventions of the genre, to the point where it’s somewhat frustrating to see just how far the film is unwilling to go in terms of developing its core ideas. However, its far from being the absolute travesty that its reputation over the past twenty years has suggested, and while I doubt this is going to be subjected to a thorough critical reappraisal that will entirely shift the perception many have about it, we can at least find some value in looking back at its core themes and how it chooses to address them. The problem with this film is that it had potential, but quite simply did not know the right way to address them without becoming hopelessly overwrought and predictable, hitting all the beats that we would expect and rarely leaving much space for our interpretation. It’s a film that is struggling to define itself, and while it is competently made and well-acted, the story that connects these elements is flimsy at the best of times – its certainly not enough to warrant the vitriolic reactions it has received over the years, but its also not difficult to see why many viewers have trouble embracing this film, which is slightly inconsistent and never quite amounts to anything particularly valuable at the best of times, leading to a horror film that is amusing but never much more, one of the core flaws of an otherwise solid and decently-made psychological horror that could have been far better with just a little work.