Review of Winchester (2018) by Adrian D — 11 Feb 2018

2/5 Stars.

Winchester is a film based on the real life Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, CA. The mansion's construction began in 1884 and continued until 1922 when Mrs. Sarah Winchester passed away. As the widow to William Winchester, the owner of Winchester Repeating Arms Company, Mrs. Winchester inherited majority shares of the company and believed that all the deaths by Winchester rifles were haunting her. She moved West to San Jose and began construction on the mansion to appease the spirits and confuse them to her whereabouts in the mansion. The film has the lore to make a frightening film, but in the end relies mostly on jump scares to try and scare the audience. Helen Mirren does her best portraying Mrs. Winchester, however, some of the cheesy dialogue just can't be overcome no matter how great an actress she is. Jason Clarke does a good job playing Dr. Eric Price, a psychologist sent in to evaluate Sarah in order to determine if she is fit of mind and body to continue running the company. Aside from establishing who these characters are, the movie fails to give them a true purpose or story arc. It's not until about late in the movie where we, as an audience, get to find out what the end-game of the film is and ultimately what the main character's purpose is. That should have been established early on to avoid a film that mostly lacks a sense of direction despite a solid start.