A low-velocity thriller

Film review: Winchester

MANILA, Philippines — Audiences looking for jump scares, gore and shrieks should be advised to look elsewhere: Winchester is not that kind of movie. Instead, it relies on atmosphere, tension and suspenseful build-up to provide the kind of thrills one would feel, not in a theme park haunted house ride, but while walking alone in a churchyard at midnight on a full moon.

The female protagonist is played by the redoubtable Hellen Mirren, which already shows you that in terms of production values, this film is a cut above the rest. Her true-to-life character is that of Sara Winchester, the widow and heir of William Winchester, who made his fortune manufacturing the Winchester Repeating Rifle, a lever-action rifle that revolutionized the gun industry and helped in great measure in making the Union prevail over the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Becoming a deeply enigmatic recluse, she had moved her residence to a deserted town after her husband’s death in the late 1800s, and started building a mansion for herself and her niece (played by English actress Sarah Snook).

And what a mansion it was: huge, complex and imposing, it was Sara’s will that rooms be continually added to it, without rhyme or reason, and has an army of workmen toiling 24/7 for that purpose. As controlling stockholder of what was then one of the biggest gunmakers in the world, it was naturally a concern for the other stockholders as to whether her state of mind rendered her fit to continue heading such a huge concern.

Enter Dr. Eric Price (Jason Clarke), an eminent psychotherapist, who had lost his wife a couple of years back. Lost, pursuing a bohemian lifestyle and addicted to laudanum (an opium derivative then in vogue), he was only too happy for the employment offered by the company’s lawyer for him to make an analysis of the widow’s mental health, with a premium to be paid to him for a pre-arranged finding that she was of unsound mind and should be deprived of control of the company.

This necessitated Dr. Price having to live in the weird Winchester mansion for a week. This is also when the fun starts. Soon after his arrival, he notices, strange things: sudden visions, ghostly apparitions, odd sounds coming from the Tubes (a sort of rudimentary intercom with tubes running all around the house for communication). A particularly eerie sound appears to be coming from the Garden Room. When he goes out to investigate, he finds from the construction foreman that the Garden Room has been ordered sealed by Mrs. Winchester — via a bar with 13 nails.

Underestimating his subject during his interviews with her, Dr. Price finds Sara to be more than a match for him intellectually. She knows about the death of his wife, his dependence on laudanum and orders his supply confiscated. Resenting his meanderings around the house after dark, she orders him “confined to quarters” after dark. Alone in his room, he is startled when a huge bell on a tower in the compound tolls at exactly midnight. Asking the staff what the significance of that was, the curt answer was, “because it is midnight.”

His visions continue, which he attributes to opium withdrawal. Escaping through a window, he observes Sara in a room looking possessed and drawing a room plan on a piece of paper. Unable to contain his curiosity, he confronts Sara about the peculiar goings-on. She confesses that she sees ghosts. “You see them, too, don’t you?” she asks. “That makes only two of us.”

Dr. Price’s incredulity turns to cautious belief when Sara proves to him that a supposed servant he had just encountered in the hallway had previously died 20 years ago. She tells him that spirits they see are the souls of those killed by the Winchester rifle, and that she can allay their torment only by continually building rooms in the house where their spirits can reside so she can show her remorse for their deaths. Before the film ends, Dr. Price witnesses a revelation that makes him come to terms with the death with his wife which was — it was eventually revealed — also by the Winchester Repeating Rifle, and a confrontation with a powerful, restless spirit that results in its defeat but a substantial destruction of the Winchester Mansion. In the end, Dr. Price gives Sara a clean bill of health, thwarting the attempts of the minority to wrest control of the company from her.

Mirren is, as always, a delight to watch as she essays the role of the Winchester widow: profoundly troubled, deeply disturbed but willfully determined to expurgate her life of ghosts. Clarke deftly and skillfully portrays his character as a flawed and vulnerable therapist ostensibly expert at analyzing others while failing to analyze himself. The rest of the cast discharge their acting duties creditably, adding believability and propelling along a movie which takes its time in developing both plot and character.

In the final act, the horror of Winchester is not in its sights, but in its insights. Just like an older horror flick, 1981’s Ghost Story, the film must be taken metaphorically, rather than as an out-and-out scary movie. The bizarre Winchester house — cavernous and labyrinthine — is a symbol for life, the ghosts in it are the feelings and emotions that, from the past, haunt one’s journey through life. The movie, splendidly photographed with little lighting and permeated with chiaroscuro, tells us that the evils we did before shall always come back to haunt us; but that repentance, atonement and ultimately, the will to look forward, will result in redemption.