When 'Gothika' came out in 2004 I went to see it in the first week of its release. It wouldn't have been my first choice of film, however a friend of mine had been looking forward to its release for some time and therefore I was dragged along to the cinema by him, something I was not complaining too much about as it sounded like an interesting concept for a film and one that I would potentially enjoy a great deal. I am not the biggest fan of Halle Berry in the world, that's for sure, but I don't exactly dislike the actress and have enjoyed some of the roles she has played in the past so that was not at all going to be a problem.

What I liked most about 'Gothika' is the freshness of the story. Whilst the plot progresses badly I feel, the idea of it is excellent and is one that I feel easily could have made for a good film. Sadly this is not so, and 'Gothika' is quite a non-event of a film that never really gets going and is in fact terribly tiresome. If you're a fan of Halle Berry then this may make you view the film from a more positive light, however this alone would not be enough to have you enjoy the film. There is not enough going on here to capture the attention and when watching the film I find my mind wandering extremely quickly. I have a very short attention span on the whole, and 'Gothika' is a film that does nothing to try and keep it.

'Gothika' comes from the same Director as the great French film 'La Haine', and the cinematography is by Matthew Libatique who had the same role for the brilliant 'Requiem for a Dream'. With Mathieu Kassovitz as Director and such an excellent cinematographer also; 'Gothika' has no excuse for being as poor as it was. The film has got some brilliant backing and so much could have potentially been made of the film, however the fact that this was not so suggest that the script was perhaps too poor to have done anything spectacular with. Maybe this is not so though, neither of these names have any great history in horror and perhaps this is why 'Gothika' does not feel at all like a horror film. To make a horror film that shuns every horror convention going will just never work, and when those that are masterminding the film are not at all horror experts and instead have made names for themselves in another field; is this ever going to be able to work? The answer to this question is probably yes, however in this instance I do not feel that things work at all well as the film is extremely poor and not even the best acting parts in the world could have saved this film from flopping.