Set in California in the early 1900s, this tedious horror pitches Australian actor Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty) as a swaggering psychiatrist sent to assess Helen Mirren’s increasingly erratic (or possibly possessed) gun heiress. Mirren’s Sarah Winchester lives in an elaborate stately home made up of “almost 100 rooms”, setting up a conventional haunted house film that insists on schlocky thrills and trite genre cliches (such as toys that skid across hallways of their own accord and mysteries lurking under the bed and in the cellar).
The film builds itself around the platitude that “fear exists only in the mind”, refusing to explore anything remotely frightening beyond cheap jump scares. Still, at least Mirren seems to be having a great time in high-necked black lace, hurling herself about her mansion.
