Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Winchester (a movie review post)

Let me start this off by saying that I am not a horror movie person. But, then, that was not my motivation for watching this movie and, now, having seen it, I'd have to say that this is barely a horror movie, which was probably the cause of its poor reception. When you have something billed as a horror movie, the people going to see it want horror. At best, this can only be called a spooky movie. In fact, it was rather reminiscent of the TV show Ghost Whisperer.

That being said, my family largely enjoyed the movie, but, then, none of us are horror movie people so, if it had actually been a horror movie, we, as a family, wouldn't have watched it. I would have been doing that on my own because, like I alluded to, I had other motivations for watching the movie. The main one being that the house in the movie is a real place, the Winchester Mystery House, and we had been talking about going to visit it for years. When the movie came out, with Helen Mirren, no less, I figured I'd watch it since we still hadn't been to visit the house.

But I never got around to it.

Then, we went to visit the house, finally!, back in September, and that provided the motivation to watch the movie, as a family, no less, though that took some convincing because of its "horror movie" status.

As I said, my family largely enjoyed the film. Easily, the best bits were when they used rooms we had seen on our tour, at night by candlelight! (new this year), which gave the movie some personal emotional connection. The acting was fine, Helen Mirren perhaps a bit wasted in this particular role, though, since the movie didn't really rise above the ghostly mundane.

I think the biggest failure of the movie was its lack of focus on the house itself. Sure, the house features into the movie, but it's really only ever a side-effect. It's like the filmmakers couldn't decide whether they were making a horror movie or a historical movie and, so, fell somewhere in the middle, a middle which didn't really work for the public in general since, I'm sure, most of the public doesn't realize the house is real and, certainly, most of the public has never been there.

Anyway, if you like a little bit of spook, especially since this is October, this could be worth watching. If you like a lot of spook, this is not for you. If you like a little bit of history and a lot of history-fiction (shut up, I don't want to say "historical fiction," right now), this could be worth watching. If you like a more in depth look at your history in your history-fiction, this is going to disappoint, as it doesn't really ever tell you anything more than that there was a woman named Sarah Winchester who built a weird house.

And more on that tomorrow.

5 comments:

  1. I wondered about that one. I won't expect horror, just a little ghosting. You'd think the house would play more into it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alex: I suppose they figured since it's basically on the screen the whole time that that would be enough, but they don't say much more about it than the construction never stopped and some stuff they made up for the movie.

      Delete
  2. It always makes me uneasy when they do this kind of things about real people. It's one thing if it's trying to show what actually happened and what Sarah Winchester was like as a person, but this movie doesn't seem to do that and I don't like that they're sensationalizing everything. The real story is interesting enough on its own. It shouldn't be a horror movie. Although from what you say, this actually wasn't.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jeanne: I may end up breaking down and looking to see if there are any good biographies about her just because I'd like to know if we know anything true about her or if it's all just legends.

      Delete
  3. I also dislike horror movies, but I would be interested in an historical exploration of the woman and her motives. Alas, it was neither, so I'll give it a skip.

    ReplyDelete