Doug Did It

Wasted our time on Gothika tonight. It was neither as bad as the reviews said, nor as good as it could have been. It had atmosphere -- all good horror movies have "atmosphere" but since no one has yet offered a convincing argument as to what that means, exactly, it's an easy point to score -- but it also had plot-holes you could drive a bus through. Most of the blame can be laid at the feet of screenwriter Sebastian "I Somehow Managed To Fuck Up The Big Bounce" Gutierrez, but it's from Dark Castle Productions, who are the guys responsible for the remakes of The House on Haunted Hill and Thirteen Ghosts, as well as the equally logic-impaired Ghost Ship, so I don't know that plot was a big concern.

Nikki brought this up: Why, she asked, if the ghost-girl can manage to slash "Not Alone" into Halle Berry's forearm, even manage -- inexplicably -- to breathe on glass and write it in the condensation, didn't she just write "Doug Did It"? At one point, Berry escapes from her cell and breaks into one of the doctors' offices. On the computer screen, apparently accessed by the dead girl, is a news article on the girl's alleged suicide. Now, if she can surf the 'net, why not just open Word and type out a full explanation, rather than all this silly "Not Alone" business? Ghosts, it seems, can only be vague.

If you can cast all this aside as easily as the Dark Castle guys apparently did, it might be an okay movie. We just had trouble swallowing the fact that Berry obviously beat a murder rap with the "Possessed By Dead Girl" defense.