By Emilio Frenk.
Directors: Michael and Peter Spierig
Cast: Helen Mirren, Jason Clarke, Sarah Snook, Fin Scicluna-O`Prey, Angus Sampson, Laura Brent, Tyler Coppin and Eamon Farren.
Rating: Poor
The Spierig Brothers, directors of “Daybreakers”, “Predestination” and “Jigsaw” bring “Winchester”, a thriller that had potential, but the results were unfortunate.
Based in the early 1900´s, the movie takes place in San Jose, California and tells the story of Eric Price (Jason Clarke) a psychiatrist who recently suffered a tragedy and is asked to see Widow Sarah Winchester (Helen Mirren) who claims that spirits of people who had been killed by the Winchester rifle.
Price agrees to help Sarah Winchester and will try to find the answers around the spirits that live in her house.
The main reason why I think that “Winchester” is a movie that doesn´t work is due to the fact that the story lacked of originality.
The Spierig Brothers tried to do this movie as real as possible to the legends of The Winchester Mansion but unfortunately didn’t work. Another factor that I observed in this film is the fact that the film played with the main characters. I thought that the main character was Sarah Winchester and ended up being Eric Price, played by Jason Clarke.
I think that Jason Clarke is a very talented actor but here I didn´t feel for his character at all. For the minute he is introduced he is detestable and also his main conflict was revelead to late in the film.
When they try to reveal why his character had the behavior it had it was too late and I didn´t are about it all.
The excessive use of flashbacks drove me insane in this film and it´s one of the things that I think ruined the film.
I do believe that this movie had true potential, due to the cast that it was involved, specially Helen Mirren and Jason Clarke.
Also I think that The Spierig Brothers are talented filmmakers in this genre. They have shown that in films like “Predistination” and “Daybreakers” where they knew how to manage every element of surprise in a very good way. There are directors who also know how to manage tension pretty well but here they failed and badly.
The movie has moments were you jump, like a music cue or an element that a spirit appears and so on. That´s the only thing this movie has.
Other thing that really bored me to death was the pacing of the film, despite it´s length of 1 Hour and 39 minutes.
For a movie of this genre you need to know how you play with your elements. Also the use of psychological tools is paramount and I didn´t see those here, to the point that the movie was laughable.
With that being said “Winchester” not only is one of the weakest movies I´ve seen in this genre but one of the biggest dissapointments in this year and I cannot recommend it for any reason.