This is one to watch when you know as little about it as possible. That way, you’ll at least enjoy it once. For me, it’s a first-viewing – GREAT – and then cast-aside movie. If I want a repeat, then the almost-too-similar What Lies Beneath will please me more. Make that a double bill with 8MM, and Gothika becomes a little redundant.

I loved the slick camera-work in this movie: again, very reminiscent of What Lies Beneath: at one point the camera drifts through the glass of a Hannibal Lector-like cell, drifts out, and then back in, mimicking the motions of a ghost that haunts Halle Berry, a very Robert Zemeckis-like move. Zemeckis, who directed What Lies Beneath, also produced, I wonder if his involvement ended there.

Gothika definitely has plenty of surprises and interest to last one night’s viewing, but not a lot that will last beyond that.