Winchester, 2018 USA; Dir by The Spierig Brothers; Starring Helen Mirren, Sarah Snook, Finn Scicluna-O'Prey, Jason Clarke
I seem to recall that around the time of the theatrical release of Winchester there was an episode of the podcast Lore about the Winchester house. Sarah Winchester was the widow of William Winchester - the firearms magnate who started Winchester Arms. The story goes that after losing William to tuberculosis and her infant daughter, Sarah left New Haven CT for San Jose, CA where in 1884 she purchased an unfinished farm house and turned it into The Winchester House.
The house was legendary for being enormous and constantly under construction, with a random design that made little to no sense - odd shaped rooms, stairways to ceilings, etc. Rumor had it a medium in Boston told Sarah to go west. Rumor also had it that the crazy design and constant construction was Sarah's way of trying assuaging her guilt for making so much money off of a company that created tools of death and that by creating these rooms for the souls of victims of the Winchester rifles those victims could, by visiting their rooms, find peace.Whether or not any of these motivations of Sarah are true is of course up for speculation, but for the plot of Winchester it is considered the truth.
The basic setup is this, Dr. Eric Price (Clarke) is hired by the Winchester Repeating Arms company to head to the Winchester house and investigate if it is indeed haunted or if Sarah has merely lost her marbles. As she owns 50% or more of the company, by having Sarah declared nuts the board would be able wrest control of the company for Sarah.
Dr. Price needs the money, so he takes the job. He also has a thing for the ladies and a thing for laudanum (Deadwood fans may remember that laudanum is a liquid form of opium taken by Alma Garrett in it's early seasons). He arrives at the house to find that it's crazy construction activity is both the norm and, as advertised, apparently has no rhyme or reason. He's told by one foreman that rooms are removed almost as often as they are added and that constuction is pretty much 24-7.
He meets Mrs. Winchester (Mirren) who, while peculiar, appears a formidably determined woman but not out and out crazy. She let's Price know that she is aware of why he is there and that she has some very strict rules she expects him to follow while he is under her roof (for example she knows of Price's love of the laudanum and forbids him to have it at all while he is a guest). Her niece (Succession's Sarah Snook) and great nephew are also staying with her - the boy seems to be having nightmares caused by the ghosts in the house, causing him to sleep walk.
With it's dependency on jump scares, Winchester disappointingly never really elevates above standard haunted house fare with plenty of CGI effects. While there are some interesting ideas here, we never see much of the house. And for a house that, before the 1906 earthquake famously had about 140 rooms, seven floors and over 17 chimnies, this really is a missed opportunity.
And once again (sorry, spoiler - the ghosts are real!)this is a movie where our heroes have a some tasks to accomplish, that they figure out rather easily, in order to give the various ghosts peace to send them on to the next world. I'm not sure why the task oriented give them peace ghost story has become a thing in recent years, but I can't say it's one of my favorite trends.
While Winchester was an improvement over the previous night's selection, we are definitely in a bit of a rut here on our October horror movie quest. Despite being in the middle of the latest horror golden age, it seems our viewing choices are in a bit of a slump.
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