Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

This is one of the best horror/thriller movies ive ever seen . One of the few movies that actually has a good story in it

One of my favourite films of all time. Who will believe you when you are mad? This is a murder mystery, a supernatural thriller, a psychological drama and much much more. Clever storyline, good performance by Halle Berry, a frustrating watch, but very enjoyable

The wife of eminent psychologist Dr. Grey has apparently murdered him in a twisted tale of horror, suspense, and ghostly possession. It's an escape movie, wherein Miranda Grey (Halle Berry) is accused of a crime she committed "by proxy" as the unwilling victim of ghostly possession. She must run for her life. Is it badly written? As a horror story, it succeeds. As a who (or what) done-it, it's quite elementary, as I guessed the accomplice half-way through the film, based on awkward clues. Both men, the Chief of Police and Dr. Grey have their own little Satanic Cult going-on, involving S&M, torture, and the death of innocent women, while videotaping them. (sick) Miranda is an inmate in the "Psycho Ward" of her own ghastly prison. It's a monstrous, evil place. She is carved-up and attacked by a ghost and inmates in a nightmarish shower sequence, and accused of being both "a cutter" and suicidal. She is guided by the ghost of the Head Administrator's daughter, as she was also murdered by Dr. Grey and mistakenly thought to have died by suicide as a bridge jumper. In the end, Miranda is exonerated of all crimes, which is very hard-to-believe, as her hands, if not her body, did kill her evil husband. However, she still sees ghosts. I enjoyed Halle's good performance in spite of the somewhat predictable storyline. "Gothika", as explained by "Chloe", is the realm of Satan. Graphic, confusing, unsettling, and certainly not for the squeamish.

Matthieu Kassovitz's underrated chiller Gothika is thick with a horror atmosphere that goes straight for the jugular in terms of scares, a psychological ghost story that actually raises hairs a frightens, or at least did for me. It sometimes sacrifices logic for style, but what style it's got! Any horror flick set in an asylum just has to to be cloaked in workable atmosphere to be effective, and this one is positively dripping with it, hence the evocative title. Halle Berry plays a laid back psychiatrist who wakes up one day in the asylum she works at, only now a patient. She's told she brutally murdered her husband (Charles S. Dutton) yet has no memory of the act. As if that weren't a terrifying enough situation for her to be in, she starts having waking nightmares, haunted by a gnarly ghost of a girl (Kathleen Mackey) with mysterious ties to the facility's past. Her colleague and friend (Robert Downey Jr. gives the dour proceedings his usual chipper pep) seems unable to help her. A guard (John Carroll Lynch) is hostile towards her, angry at the loss of her husband who was his friend. An erratic fellow patient (a de-glammed Penelope Cruz) seems to know more than her vacuous babbling would suggest. The asylum Director (Bernard Hill, excellent) is perplexed by the whole situation. It's a twisty funhouse of a plot that probably piles on one stark plot turn too many, they're nevertheless fun to be left aghast by as the rattle by with little regard for plausibility. Berry is convincing in her tormenting position, radiating desperation and resilience that claws at the cobwebs of insanity. Kassovitz piles on the Gothic atmosphere relentlessly, and it really works, until we have a visual palette that looks like the dark underside of Tim Burton's unconscious mind. The ghostly scenes have a threatening, intense edge to them and feel unnervingly realistic, putting us right in the hot seat with wide eyed Berry. Style over substance? Maybe. Okay, probably. But I care not. If the style, composition and palette are enough to draw me into a story, I can roll with it. This one imprints troubling negatives on the celluloid which latch themselves onto your psyche. Maybe it works well because it's got a European director, and they're more in tune with the supernatural in general. Maybe it just does a nice job at being effective horror. Either way, I enjoyed.