Gothika

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

In trash as in art there is no accounting for taste, and reader, I cherished this movie in all of its lurid glory.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Kassovitz directs with an unrelenting intensity that helps you to suspend disbelief almost all the way to the credits.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

Delivers genuine scares.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Comes from the same jolly homage-to-schlock-shock producers who remade ''House on Haunted Hill,'' and the emphasis is shamelessly on ornate scares. But with its high-gloss cast and French art-house actor and director Mathieu Kassovitz (''Hate'') in charge, the movie also shoots for class.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Given her (Halle Berry) biggest part since winning Oscar, she responds with a zeal that's more than the movie deserves.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Great cast, great atmosphere, little sense or first-rate suspense.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

A plot that insults, betrays, and cheats every member of the audience. Stupidity to a degree can sometimes be forgiven. Stupidity to this degree can not and should not.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

For a while there, Mathieu Kassovitz's atmospherically charged direction sucks the viewer into the story's hellish vortex. That is until the film becomes possessed by an increasingly ludicrous beyond-the-grave element from which there is no rational return.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

May try to revive the eerie spirit of the Gothic novel, but, unless you're suffering from amnesia yourself, it probably won't surprise or thrill you.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Gothika was supposed to provide proof that she (Berry) could carry a film as a leading lady, but it doesn't. That's not entirely her fault, since nobody can fetch a drink of water in a sieve.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

If you try hard enough, you might be able to forget that the story doesn't make a lot of sense or provide adequate thrills, although it tries to scare you a couple of times in the cheapest possible way.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

For those who want nothing more than a thorough scare, Gothika is effective. But for those of us who want some psychological insight with our frightfests, the film is sadly lacking.

USA Today Mike Clark

The movie gets a mild boost when her escape briefly takes it from just another crummy supernatural thriller into an OK escape melodrama, albeit one dependent on a whopper of an unlikely occurrence.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

There must be something about the thriller/horror genre that attracts writers with exactly the same dysfunctional tendencies: They're all great at the foreplay but keep on messing up the climax.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Silly stuff, made all the more regrettable by the apparent skill with which the movie was made everywhere but in the screenplay department. The sheer lunkheadedness of Sebastian Gutierrez's script is impossible to ignore.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

Kassovitz can't control the ridiculous script and messy tone. And though it's not exactly hard to watch Berry run around in a hospital robe (Cruz and Berry: That's one good-looking mental ward), it's not particularly profound.

Premiere Laine Ewen

Gothika deserves credit for embracing the ghost story genre so whole-heartedly, but as any ten-year-old girl can tell you, there's nothing original here to see.

Empire Adam Smith

Gothika never delivers anything more than the occasional, cynically engineered jolt and often drifts close to provoking giggles.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

While stylistic excess keeps Gothika mildly diverting, though suspense-and horror-free, Kassovitz can't do anything to keep the film's ending from degenerating into camp.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

A film that is long on atmosphere, but short on smarts: Plot points are easily unraveled 20 minutes in advance (no fun sleuthing for the audience here), the ending is an unsatisfying pastiche off too many horror tropes, and it would take a week to plug all of Gothika’s gaps in logic.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

A gloomy-doomy ghost story that gets off to a creepy start and then spirals into flat-out preposterousness.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Dopey, violent horror thriller.

Variety David Rooney

Hampered by thinly developed characters and pedestrian plotting.

Village Voice David Ng

Quickly abandoning the psychological for the supernatural, the movie collapses its premise into one painfully derivative pitch.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Ms. Berry works hard in her role, generating some excitement in the course of her distress. But the story's convolutions can't cover a deficit of substance, or sense.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

More of a women's-prison movie than a supernatural thriller, and not a very good one at that.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

French director Mathieu Kassovitz Frenches this flimsy tale to death. No scene goes underplayed, no performance (save one, from Robert Downey Jr.) lacks volume, no horror cliche is forgotten.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

For most of the movie, however, Halle sprints, Halle swims (55 laps!), and Halle screams. It's a two-hour fitness video -- a portrait of the Oscar winner as personal trainer.

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

The best they were able to manage, apparently, was a grabbag of spectral sights and spooky touches grabbed from better horror films and a final act that raises more questions than it answers.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

An unsurprising, undistinguished piece of post-summer, pre-holiday detritus.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

They go about scaring you, but only in the most hackneyed and cheap-shock manner.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

They go about scaring you, but only in the most hackneyed and cheap-shock manner.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Proves to be both too much and not enough: yet another slick, empty package of ersatz entertainment.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

How anyone in the cast manages to keep a straight face is one of the film's innumerable mysteries.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Stupefyingly stupid thriller.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

The movie spins further and further into coincidence and incoherence.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub

Tolerable for undiscriminating horror fans but should be shunned by everybody else.