A House of Many Rooms
Seen at Annapolis Bowtie Cinemas
Don’t let Helen Mirren’s presence fool you; Winchester is B-horror. If there is anything interesting to be said about its dull and ultimately ludicrous 90 minutes, it is how the writers (two of whom also bear the infamy of being this turkey’s directors) manage to create a story that parallels the architectural design of the Winchester mansion itself, a confounding structure of interwoven stairs to nowhere, windows to nothing, and rooms that serve no purpose.
The appeal for studio executives, besides the oddity of the house (which still stands in San Jose, California), were the tabloid rumors that Sarah Winchester (widow of Winchester Repeating Rifle Company founder William Wirt Winchester) kept haphazardly adding rooms to the mansion because she believed them necessary to house the souls of those killed by Winchester rifles. Apparently, she got the idea from a fortune teller after the deaths of her husband and little girl. Had we been present at the séance, we might have inquired, given the great carnage perpetrated by owners of these well-crafted, reliable rifles, whether simply buying a few hotels might be cheaper. By the time she died in 1922, the widow Winchester had completed 166 rooms (and counting...in 2016 a new one was found containing a pipe organ), which wouldn’t have even been enough to house the dead from one battle in the Civil War, let alone all those pouring in from ‘14-’18.
Still, the questionable logistics have not stopped the ghost story from becoming a staple of cable documentary shows and a source of income for Winchester Investments LLC, the company that now manages the property as a tourist attraction.
Having taken our place in the theater, our first thought was: will they ever make a period piece that doesn’t look like a scene from a snow globe sold at Disney Land? Every drapery, jacket, and seat cushion in Winchester looks like it could smudge if not handled carefully. Of course, it’s a genre movie and what do directors Peter and Michael Spierig care about subverting period piece conventions? On the other hand, it must have cost something to get everything filtered to the point where a critic, after several gulps of Rebel Yell to dull the pain, could write that the cinematography looks “sumptuous.” Surely that would have been money better spent on someone who knows how to write horror.
A scare is constructed of the three parts: the apparition, the dread, and the reveal. The apparition is the bump in the night – in Winchester we begin with a mother (played by Sarah Snook) awakening to find that her little boy is not in his bed. Through groaning darkened halls, she creeps, calling his name until, rounding a corner, she finds the boy walking resolutely towards a staircase with a burlap sack over his head. We have reached the dread. The knot in our stomach turns from anticipation to terror, as she reaches toward the sack. We implore her not to reveal what might be under there.
At this stage, we still hold out hope – despite its dismal reviews – that Winchester might yet surprise us. Alas, when the mother pulls off the bag, we are greeted by a sight seen far too often: a child possessed, eyes rolled into the back of his head, waxing prophetic.
Thus, the opening sequence concludes, the first of many such clichés cobbling together Winchester’s plot – a haunted house, a near death experience that results in being able to see ghosts, a talisman, a dead wife, a hero with a tortured past, a dead child, the number 13, a widow in a black veil, an old timey opiate addiction, and much banging on doors and walls.
There might also be a message about gun control in there somewhere; but if so, we completely missed it, distracted by the absurd spectacle of levitating rifles, magic bullets, and a final sequence that contains a quick draw between man and ghost.
The single digit rating on Rotten Tomatoes is perhaps overly harsh. We attribute that mostly to Helen Mirren, who plays the widow Winchester. Her presence no doubt gave critics higher expectations than they should have had. Jason Clarke stars as well, in the lead role of Eric Price. Both should be commended for keeping a straight face through this one.