Winchester

“The stereotyping of Black and Indigenous men are made worse by the fact they never speak, nor do they have any backstories.”

Title: Winchester (2018)
Director: Michael Spierig 👨🏼🇩🇪🇦🇺 and Peter Spierig 👨🏼🇩🇪🇦🇺
Writers: Michael Spierig 👨🏼🇩🇪🇦🇺, Peter Spierig 👨🏼🇩🇪🇦🇺, and Tom Vaughan 👨🏼🇺🇸

Reviewed by Roxana Hadadi 👩🏽🇺🇸

Note: This review was commissioned by Lionsgate. The content and methodology remain 100% independent and in line with Mediaversity's non-commissioned reviews.

—SPOILERS AHEAD—

Technical: 2.5/5

Winchester is a predictable, barely scary horror movie that does its source material a disservice. Set in 1906, the film ostensibly features heiress Sarah Winchester (Helen Mirren) who inherits $20 million (nearly $600 million in today’s dollars) and becomes the majority shareholder of Winchester Repeating Arms Company following her husband’s death. In the 20 years since his passing, Sarah has expanded the family mansion into a seven-story structure with myriad strange rooms, hallways that go nowhere, and different wings.

The men who control the Company’s board are concerned that Sarah’s obsessive 24/7 construction on the family estate and rumored belief in the supernatural suggest a slide into mental illness. Thinking that she might be a financial liability, they hire Dr. Eric Price (Jason Clarke) to assess Sarah and deliver a report about whether she’s fit to lead. At first, Dr. Price agrees that Sarah is losing it, especially after she explains that the ghosts of people killed with Winchester rifles are haunting her, and that the rooms she is adding will give the ghosts a place to cross over into the afterlife. But as Dr. Price begins to see the apparitions himself, and finds evidence that Sarah’s grandnephew Henry (Finn Scicluna-O'Prey) is being possessed by a vengeful entity seeking revenge against Sarah, he begins to change his mind. Can he help save Sarah, her niece Marion (Sarah Snook), and Henry from whatever evil spirit is trying to kill them?

A fascinating idea sits at the core of Winchester regarding how one’s perceived complicity in the injury or death of others can still lead to all-consuming guilt and other mental health issues. Unfortunately, Winchester doesn’t really engage with that concept past its clichéd supernatural angle.

Gender: 2/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? NOPE

Perhaps the single most frustrating aspect of the movie is how it doesn’t feel like Sarah’s story at all. Instead, Clarke’s Dr. Price enjoys primary status as he works through his own trauma and experiences with the supernatural. Alongside its male protagonist, the film generally casts more men than women into both speaking and background, silent roles. For example, in scenes that take place at the Winchester mansion, the construction workers, staff, and even ghosts are mostly men.

The relationship between Sarah and Marion is presented as a central one, and we hear Marion discussing her aunt with Dr. Price. But the women never really engage with each other onscreen. Only one meaningful conversation takes place, once it is revealed that Marion’s son Henry is being possessed. Through further conversations with Dr. Price, we also learn about Marion’s family tragedy—a husband who drank himself to death and a son who is acting increasingly strange.

The only woman who has a true arc is Ruby Price (Laura Brent), Dr. Price’s wife. Flashbacks show that she tried to convince Dr. Price of the existence of the supernatural, but he diagnosed her as delusional. Ruby tries to kill him—and also kills herself after years of his disbelief, which Winchester shares after Dr. Price realizes that a garden room built in the Winchester estate is meant for him and Ruby’s ghost to reach closure. In that garden room, Ruby’s ghost re-enacts the murder-suicide and then tells Dr. Price that she forgives him. The scene serves entirely to absolve her husband of any lingering shame over Ruby’s death.

Race: 1/5

Although set in California during the early 1900s—a time when that state had Black, Latinx, and Asian populations—Winchester is an incredibly white film. The Company representatives, estate staff, and construction workers are all white, as are people shown walking around in San Jose and San Francisco, the film’s two locations. The only people of color in the film are the spirits who remain locked in the Winchester estate’s rooms, and are implied to have difficulty moving on from the trauma inflicted upon them.

Dr. Price encounters such ghosts as a shirtless Black man in chains, an Indigenous American in a feathered headdress, a Black woman, and a few other white women. The stereotyping of Black and Indigenous men are made worse by the fact they never speak, nor do they have any backstories. The film implies that these characters died from Winchester rifles but, unlike the other ghosts Sarah has helped reach closure and pass into the afterlife, Sarah laments that these ghosts “cannot move on” from the violence inflicted upon them, and therefore must remain trapped in her house. It feels exploitative for Winchester to present these oppressed peoples as inconveniences for Sarah.

Towards the end of the film, Sarah orders these ghosts to go back into their locked rooms. The final scenes end with the suggestion that one of them escapes—which leaves open the possibility that one of the film’s few diverse characters could become the Winchester home’s next villain. The entire setup feels grossly rendered, without a hint of input from Black or Indigenous people of color at the ideation stage.

Bonus for Age: +0.50

Although the men who run the Winchester Repeating Arms Company try to force Sarah out by bribing Dr. Price to evaluate her negatively, Sarah refuses to acquiesce to their pressure, ageism, or bullying. Her character, who is 67 years old in the film and was portrayed by Mirren when the actress was 71, goes against the stereotype of aging adults who are commonly depicted in movies as naive or senile. In contrast, Sarah is resourceful, knowledgeable, and respected.

Mediaversity Grade: D 2.00/5

Despite a typically strong performance from Helen Mirren and a thought-provoking idea about the physical or spiritual toll that our inventions may have upon us, Winchester fails to offer any genuine scares or sincerely engage with its criticisms of gun violence. Most egregiously, the film’s bait and switch of its female protagonist for a male lead, and its uncomfortable use of oppressed peoples as supernatural accessories, diminish Winchester.

Like Winchester? Try these other spooky historical titles.

Grade: DLiFebruary 1, 2018Great for: Age