By RUSSELL BAILLIE
(Herald rating: * * )
In Gothika, Halle Berry reminds that she may be an Oscar-winning actress but she has a really cheap taste in undoubtedly high-paying roles.
This has her as psychiatrist Dr Miranda Gray who works in a mental institution and who, after a close encounter of the
spooky kind, wakes up as a patient three years later in her own hospital.
Yes, you would think she might know how to escape somewhere she worked.
But it's okay, French director Kassovitz shoots everything in such darkness, it's a wonder the staff can find the front door anyway.
Turns out her husband (Charles S. Dutton), a fellow shrink and boss of the hospital, has been murdered in grisly fashion, the evidence points to her and she hasn't been herself since.
From there, it's up to Dr Gray to prove she's sane and innocent, which she attempts with lines such as: "I'm not deluded, Pete - I'm possessed."
Meanwhile, we're left to figure out who might be the real killer among Robert Downey jnr's fellow psychiatrist, Penelope Cruz' fellow patient or the apparition who keeps leaving the helpful message: "Not alone".
That permanent darkness may also be designed to disguise the movie's shortcomings - such as its borrowing from everything from Silence of the Lambs to What Lies Beneath to The Ring to Sixth Sense to some dubious women-in-prison flicks, especially in one mass shower scene.
Don't go looking for the meaning of the title, either. And if you're not bored stupid by the great revelation of the ending, then you must be mad.
Cast: Halle Berry, Robert Downey jnr, Charles S. Dutton, Penelope Cruz
Director: Mathieu Kassovitz
Rating: R16 (horror, violence)
Running time: 95 mins
Screening: Village, Berkeley cinemas
