There are two schools of thought when it comes to the horror movie. The first is that the classics of the genre work through an exquisitely realised attention to form, ratcheting up tension before delivering an emotionally satisfying catharsis. The other involves sudden loud bangs and Halle Berry shrieking a lot. Gothika adheres firmly to the latter view.
Despite stealing from recent horror hits Ringu and The Sixth Sense, Gothika never delivers anything more than the occasional, cynically engineered jolt and often drifts close to provoking giggles. Berry delivers a performance that fails to rise above the mediocre, but can count herself lucky as Penelope Cruz's sinks way below it.
Sebastian Gutierrez's over-cooked screenplay provides director Kassovitz with more than enough trope to hang himself, serving up every cliche from endless thunderstorms and creepy asylums to flickering strip-lights and that 'spooky' backwards sound effect that no hackneyed horror these days is ever without, before applying the tin lid with a 'twist' ending more carefully signposted than wet floors in an orthopaedic ward.
And, frankly, you really have to wonder about an institution for the criminally insane with Robert Downey Jr. in charge; surely a clear case of a successful lunatic/asylum takeover bid.