Anyone familiar with the plots of The Sixth Sense and The Ring will find Gothika to be pretty familiar territory: Vengeful spirits unjustly killed seek to rectify wrongdoings by reaching out beyond the grave. Those they contact fear for their sanity, but eventually get with the program and ensure that evil is brought into the light. What moved Gothika beyond the PG-13 territory of those two films is an extended scene of non-sexual nudity, the inclusion of sexual torture as a plot point and an infusion of slasher chic-justice gets meted out with the edge of an axe. Gross stuff. And while it doesn't reach the disgusting extremes of, say, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it goes far enough for discerning viewers to leave it forever locked away in its own cinematic purgatory.
How do you convince someone who is insane that what she is experiencing just isn't real?
That question soon becomes much more personal for Miranda. While driving home in a stinging rain storm, she nearly runs down a drenched girl standing in the middle of the road. When Miranda checks to see if she needs help, both end up writhing in flames. The next thing Miranda knows is that she's locked in a cell at Woodward. In the space of a breath, three days have disappeared, three days in which Miranda's husband Doug was brutally murdered and she was found at the scene having a seizure. Miranda's former colleague, Pete, tells her she killed her husband. But Miranda knows that's not right. It was the girl, it had something to do with the girl, the girl who no one seems to think exists.
How do you convince someone who is insane that what she is experiencing just isn't real?
That question soon becomes much more personal for Miranda. While driving home in a stinging rain storm, she nearly runs down a drenched girl standing in the middle of the road. When Miranda checks to see if she needs help, both end up writhing in flames. The next thing Miranda knows is that she's locked in a cell at Woodward. In the space of a breath, three days have disappeared, three days in which Miranda's husband Doug was brutally murdered and she was found at the scene having a seizure. Miranda's former colleague, Pete, tells her she killed her husband. But Miranda knows that's not right. It was the girl, it had something to do with the girl, the girl who no one seems to think exists.