WINCHESTER

2018 | DIR. THE SPIERIG BROTHER | REVIEW BY GLENN COCHRANE.

Sarah Winchester was the real life widow and heiress to the Winchester Estate, and her husband was William Wirt Winchester, the treasurer of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Her story has become legend throughout the years and – even in her own time – tales of ghosts living within her home have given her a notorious reputation. With her monstrous inheritance she constructed The Winchester Mansion, an unorthodox labyrinthine house that she continued to build upon for over 40 years. It began as an eight-room homestead and germinated into a sprawling 100-room palace.

The Spierig Brothers (Predestination, Undead) follow up their disastrous entry into the Saw franchise – Jigsaw – with a recovery of sorts by the way of Winchester, a handsome-looking film that carries on the traditional haunted-house formula in the vein of The Woman in Black and The Changeling (among others). Exploiting the more scandalous elements of Sarah Winchester’s story, the film presents a straightforward narrative, borrowing heavily from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. We follow Doctor Eric Price (Jason Clarke), who has been sent by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company to conduct a psychological evaluation of the reclusive widow (Helen Mirren). Upon his arrival he is faced with characters and circumstances that suggest a case of psychosis, but, of course, before long he is head-deep in an epic ghost story, of which only absolute belief of the paranormal will help him survive.

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