Winchester
2 stars
Directors: Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig
Stars: Helen Mirren, Sarah Snook, Finn Scicluna-O’Prey
Duration: 99 mins
Class: 15
KRS Releasing Ltd

There is a house on San José, California’s main street – a house that is seven storeys high, has more than 500 rooms, dozens of labyrinthine hallways and staircases, thousands of windows, doors, trap doors, gables, towers, turrets, porches… and a séance room.

The house was built at the instigation of Sarah Winchester (Helen Mirren), heiress to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company fortune. Construction of the house began in the late 1880s and was incessant for 24 hours a day and seven days a week, for decades.

Many accused Winchester of being insane, yet legend has it that the woman built the house at the behest of the hundreds of ghosts of the victims of the firearms manufactured by the company she inherited from her husband.

Clearly alarmed by her actions, the board of the directors of the company try to wrest control back from Winchester by sending a doctor to her to perform a psychiatric evaluation.

Enter Doctor Eric Price (Jason Clarke), a troubled, drug-addicted man. With bankruptcy looming on the horizon, he has an incentive to send the report with the ‘right’ findings to his employers.

Price soon realises that Winchester is not necessarily mad but, with demons of his own to fight, it may well be his own ghosts he is seeing.

The house in San José is now a tourist attraction, the myth surrounding it and the fascinating cast of characters of its history the foundation of a truly enthralling premise for a film.

But the filmmakers, The Spierig brothers, miss the opportunity to create a complex study of the paranormal, opting instead for a story that places the emphasis firmly on haunted house horror tropes. It offers cheap scares and too few genuinely chilling moments.

For the greater part of its running time, the story unfolds at a rather leisurely pace that is compensated for by a frenetic, chaotic conclusion. It is padded with myriad clichés of the genre.

A possessed young boy, Henry (the intriguingly-monikered Finn Scicluna-O’Prey), wanders the house, his wide-eyed terrified mother chasing after him down the corridors.

A spooky, ghostlike butler proffers hackneyed advice; a rocking chair creaks here; a mirror reflects a ghostly visage there, and, occasionally, a roller skate rolls along the floor.

In the meantime, the sprawling architecture of the house offers way too many opportunities for multiple shadowy shots of its labyrinthine hallways which, much like the plot, lead nowhere terribly interesting. All potential scary moments are signposted by the urgent music that underscores proceedings.

Pretty humdrum, therefore. However, the presence of Mirren and the gravitas she brings to the role go a long way in elevating the experience.

An actress of her calibre certainly deserves a better film. Yet, Mirren commits fully to the role, imbuing Sarah with more layers than the script allows her.

This means her scenes are by far the most intriguing, especially the ones with Clarke, as he is interrogating her and she subtly turns the tables on him. We engage with the character, even she as frantically sketches designs for the next part of the in the dead of night in trance. It is a role that can border on the ridiculous, yet in Mirren’s hands it is believable.

Apart from the afore-mentioned scenes with Mirren, Clarke struggles somewhat with his underwritten role. He spends much time skulking around the house in the dark, while the character’s back story trickles down the narrative in dribs and drabs and adds little emotional heft to the story.

I am writing this with the TV news on in the background. There’s an item about the latest school shooting in America, and the persistent cry for gun control from America’s inert authorities.  At Winchester’s heart is an anti-gun message, as epitomised by Sarah’s desperation to assuage her guilty conscience.

Yet, this is undermined completely as, with no sense of irony, the filmmakers opt for an ending that includes an incessant volley of gunfire.

Children Cinema Day returns

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

KRS Releasing is holding the first of the twice-yearly Children Cinema Day events on March 10, when 15 specially-selected films for children will be screened.

The list on offer comprises a variety of genres that range from animation to adventure comedy, action, drama, sci-fi and family comedy. Film shows at reduced admission prices start at 9am and run until 7pm in Malta, whereas in Gozo shows will be screened at 2, 4 and 6pm.

Films will be screened at Eden Cinemas – St Julian’s; Embassy Cinemas – Valletta; Empire Cinemas– Buġibba; Galleria Cinemas – Fgura; and the Citadel Cinemas in Victoria. A mini-poster of the film Coco will be given with every child ticket purchased, until stock lasts.

Titles include Black Panther; Tad The Lost Explorer and The Secret Of King Midas; Coco; Early Man; Ferdinand; Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle; Star Wars: The Last Jedi; The Maze Runner: Death Cure; The Star; Daddy’s Home 2; Justice League; Paddington 2; Thor: Ragnarok; My Little Pony; and The Lego Ninjago Movie.