Dark Castle was created by Joel Silver, Gilbert Adler and Robert Zemeckis over their love of horror movies of the 50s and 60s, specifically those of William Castle. Initially, they worked to remake the horror films of their youth, but the company also began to expand into original stories with good casts.

Halle Berry headlining Gothika is one of them. But despite their earlier wins with remakes, this original story fumbles, and doesn’t work as well as it could. Running just over an hour and a half the story follows Dr. Miranda Grey (Berry) who finds herself accused of a crime she has no memory of, the murder of her husband (Charles S. Dutton).

But it happens after she has a strange encounter with a woman on a bridge on her way home during a storm.

She wakes to find herself a ward of the very psychiatry hospital she worked at, under the care of Pete Graham (Robert Downey Jr.).

She struggles to understand what happened to her on that bridge while dealing with her new place as a patient in the hospital, where she has troubling encounters with a former patient, Chloe (Penelope Cruz).

She struggles to prove her sanity, but what if there is something supernatural going on? How can she be sane?

Some of the effects are pretty solid, while others are glaringly bad. And the oversaturated blue color of the film, not to mention a too short story that wasn’t developed enough, make this one a but of a rough and almost useless ride.

The scares don’t work, and while it’s good to see such a strong cast in a horror movie, it also detracts from any real fear that you may have for the character’s safety. You know that in the end, Berry is going to be fine and proven right.

Oh, and Berry screams way too much in the film. You’re listening to the dialogue, and then she starts screaming, and blows out your eardrums.

It’s also easy to figure out what is really going on, even with the ghost wandering around.

This one needed to be shot a little better, have a stronger script, and maybe be a little more invested in its story. Instead, nothing it quite work as well as it could, and something that doesn’t happen often happened here… I kept checking the runtime to see how much was left.

Sorry everyone involved, this one wasn’t so great. Gimme a solid story, with some real creep to it, and unnerve me while I enjoy it. Go big or go home. This one should have gone home.