Winchester: The House That Ghosts Built

Crap from head to toe, it would Winchester himself to shame. The trailer a few months ago had me hyped up for a gothic horror film with an unusual setting and decent actors, and the Spierig brothers gave me hope as I liked their Jigsaw, but this was really, really bad. The acting was solid though. Helen Mirren and Jason Clarke are both above average actors for the horror genre, and visually it's not downright bad either, but to make such an impressive house so uninteresting and especially lacking in atmosphere is really a shame. The film has no atmosphere whatsoever, not a single scare is functional (if you are an experienced viewer, of course), even the teenage girls behind me were yawning and that's saying something. If James Wan had taken up a similar material we could have had another potential Insidious, but have the useless film of the year that is more boring than scary and after a long time I regret the money I spent going to the cinema 40%. (15.02.2018)

A horror with classic editing with everything, including excellent actors. I don't even have to mention Helen Mirren, but I was very pleased by Jason Clarke, who I want to see in roles like this and not in the Terminator films, thank you very much. In addition to them, Winchester has an (un)pleasantly ghostly atmosphere, and a few really successful and artfully escalated jump scares that do not feel cheap, and it is also (for a horror film) thoughtful, and it uses in the end what it indicates in the introduction. I liked the relatively unpredictable atmosphere as well - the whole thing could have turned out any way possible (even worse). (07.03.2018)

This is a completely different kind of ghost horror movie than what I was used to in the past few years. This one is – how should I put it – more fantastically wacky. It doesn’t put much emphasis on whether it’s realistic at all. This is not me saying that any other ghost horror movie is realistic. The movie is literally playing with the screenplay, the plot and the house of old Winchesters in such a way that you have no idea what is going to happen in the next scene. If the technical execution wasn’t so good, I would almost say that this is a C-list flick. In this case, however, I didn’t even mind that much. (14.12.2018)

Let's face it, this wasn't a horror film. It was built around silly scare scenes that would have worked on me if I was ten and it was getting dark outside. There was no chance of me being scared now. It was a shame that the film didn't have better writing and direction, because the actors certainly weren't to blame for the poor result. The constant rebuilding and finishing of the house reminded me of the much better Rose Red based on King's novel. (06.09.2018)

The best thing about the film is the idea, which unfortunately the Spierigs dealt with without anything above standard. A collection of jump scares without a proper build-up of tension, the pace towards the end is a bit slow, and the finale is more weird than scary... Helen Mirren tries to maintain her dignity, so she's as stiff as a board, whilst Jason Clarke is the only one who performs his "rational Laudianism" with grace. The film doesn't offend, but those 99 minutes don't offer anything that would wake you up from a dream. (13.03.2018)