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Either that or maybe
Gothika is the name of the fabricated city the story takes place
in, a dark and brooding city filled with black clouds and ever-pouring
rain. It'd be just like Gotham City…but with more emphasis on the
"Goth"...and less…on the…"am"… Ok, shut up. You
try to be funny with every damn sentence. It's hard, alright? You think
it's easy up here? It's hell up here. I visited my friend Jerry in the
hospital yesterday. He's my age, and he just found out he's got bowel
cancer. Bowel cancer. And I've gotta come into the Trailer
Trash offices and dance like your little clown. Well, you know what?
Fuck you. Jerry's twice the person you are, and the man's a shell in
his hospital bed. Do you have any idea what it's like, watching someone
deteriorate like that? So, you're going to stop whining and get back on board my Premise Train. It's leaving for the next gag in a few more words. Woo woo! All aboard. What if…you got lost looking for the city of Gothika? I think it would go a little something…a-like this:
Speaking of weak premises—ahem Gothika. What if… …you were a famous psychologist who treated a woman who was tortured by ghosts, but then one day you were possessed by one of these evil spirits. Then, while possessed, you murdered your husband and next thing you know you wake up…(you'll never guess where)…on the inside of the insane asylum you used to work in! Get it? Get it?! Woo-wooooooo! All aboard! Chuga-chuga-chuga….chuga….woooo……….woo? Anyone? Is anyone getting on board the Gothika Premise Train? Hello? Helloooo? I've never seen a Premise Train so empty of passengers. Too bad. Guess Hollywood will just have to decommission her. Ah, Gothika, we hardly knew ye. (under breath) Thank god. Here is where tired premises come from. Most people involved from the inception of a movie to its completion, the writers, producers, and directors, are just regular people, like us. Minus the hover Ferraris and diamond Polo stallions of course. But it's not as if Hollywood screenwriters, for instance, live the same seat-of-their-pants lives that they frequently write about. The Matrix is not considered autobiographical. Bad Boys is not a docu-drama. Screenwriters are usually abnormally fat or thin, pale to a T, and about as socially adept as your average autistic…so not the type you might see Xtreme Anything-ing in their free hours. You're supposed to "write what you know" as the old advice goes. Then why do they write so frequently in the high concept vein which is so unlike any events in their own lives? Because I doubt the writer of Gothika was a super hot, brilliant psychologist possessed by an evil spirit who then murdered her husband and was then institutionalized for the crime in a conveniently ironic life-plot twist. However, I am pretty sure that the writer of Gothika consumes his weight (Jupiter gravity) in SnoCaps daily, if not hourly, and is only familiar with the anatomy of a woman either through the internet or, if he still has dial-up, wild conjecture. (Note to screenwriters with dial-up: the vagina is not a digestive organ). So why all these plots so removed from the basic human experience? Profit, of course. Hollywood buys and makes movies for the lowest common denominator — have you seen Matrix Revolutions? I mean, have you SEEN it? (For this same reason, I feel we should applaud Ben Affleck's honesty in choosing his next film, the aptly titled Paycheck. At least Ben is finally calling it what it is. His next two films, Summer Home and Phoning It In are due out early next year.) However, the trailer for Gothika, filled with Halle Berry and murdering ghosts as is it, still wants you to buy into its legitimacy as art. It does this by being a film that allegedly "re-invents." When a movie has nothing to offer but the combination of tired premises from two or more over mined genres, they call this "re-inventing" the genre. "Re-inventing" is marketing speak for "broken calculators could have written this script." Uh-oh! Quiz time! Let's test your retention and comprehension of the Hollywood reasoning just discussed. Complete this sentence: By combining the murder mystery The Fugitive with the horror film The Ring, the movie Gothika ________. A. has ruined both
genres for me Time's up. And if you guessed anything but D you are a heathen and a fool. Good day sir! Now regardless of what I think the film will be like, in the end the question is always "Did the trailer do its job?" Did it? Yes and no.
So for the optimists, I give the movie 4 Billy Crystals. For the realists, I give it ½ a Billy Crystal. Like I always say, it's all perspective, all in the way you see things….Oh, hold on, a car is pulling over to ask for directions…be right back. OLD SARCASTIC MAN ON SIDE OF ROAD: "So you found Gothika, huh? Yup, nothing like New York is it? That's what they always compare it to, but New York doesn't have a 300 foot tower that leaks dark green blood all day long does it? Houses in New York don't eat people, and I bet you didn't find Mandatory Piercings Square much to your liking either. Nope, didn't think so. Well, maybe next time you talk to an old sarcastic man on the side of the road you'll heed his warnings won't you? Yup. Ok, well see you later. What's that? Where you going now? Zion, huh? Course I know where it is. Great place. No sun, army of robots trying to kill everyone, good times. You like techno music, right?…" Get it? I was the old man. Woo woo!
RATING: |
It's
called Gothika, yet not one person is wearing thigh-high
leather boots. There is no one who looks like a foot soldier, let alone
a general, from the Kiss Army. There is not one trench coat, nary a
piercing, and semi-automatics are virtually non-existent. No ten minute
Kung-Fu fights that take place almost exclusively in the air. And not
one person, as far as I can tell from the trailer, is or wants to be
a vampire. So I'm not really sure where the title Gothika comes
in, unless it means something along the lines of the way we use the
word Americana. Maybe the whole movie is a super long ad for people
nostalgic for bland Goth bric-a-brac…human leather doilies, classic
50's talcum powder compacts, and collectable (but evil) spoons. "Find
the spoon specially marked with the 666 and win an all-expenses paid
trip to the circle of your choice! Meet Satan. Live! One admittance
per spoon. Vin Diesel fans get in free (as always)."
OLD
SARCASTIC MAN ON SIDE OF ROAD: "Oh sure, Gothika. I know where
it is. Great place. No sun, men look like girls, good times. You like
techno music, right? Anyway, can't miss it. It's a straight shot 10
miles from here...10 miles straight down that is. That's a nice tan
you have there. You can kiss that goodbye. But hey, your night vision
can only get better, right? And be careful where you park. It gets dark
early in some parts of the city, if you catch my drift. Actually it's
dark everywhere all the time, so forget that. And I'd take off that
Hawaiian shirt of yours, unless of course you like bein' lynched, which
you might. City folk are weird like that. So like I said, just keep
driving until you see lots of people dressed like there's a funeral
going on, a very gay, fetishy funeral. And that's Gothika. Who am I?
Just a cheap comedy device. Well, I'll be seeing you. Where? Later on
in this review of course." 
If
you are gullible and really expecting the thrill ride of suspense and
fear the trailer is offering, then yes, it did its job. But if you're
not suffering from logic rot and are expecting the yawn-fest of predictable
"surprises" and laughably horrible facial expressions that
await a ticket buyer, then no, it did not do its job.
