Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.  
 
The Gothic tradition of violent change enveloped in mystery and steeped in moody atmosphere is re-imagined by Hollywood in "Gothika"...or so they want you to believe.  
 
Halle Berry plays criminal psychologist, Dr. Miranda Grey, whose stable life is turned up-side-down after an accident on a bridge during a dark & stormy night.  
 
She awakens, shocked to find herself incarcerated at the Woodward Penitentiary for Women, alongside the criminally insane patients she once treated. Unable to remember having committed an unmotivated act of such sheer brutality against a husband she loved and admired (Charles S. Dutton).  
 
My first thought was: Don't most wives that murder their husbands wake up in jail first?  
 
As poor Miranda tries to regain her memory and prove her innocence, she is untimely haunted by disturbing visions that further persuades evidence of madness by her former colleagues, like Dr. Pete Graham (ROBERT DOWNEY JR.), Miranda's sympathetic but skeptical coworker who is wrestling with issues of his own - he is in love with Miranda.  
 
The visions in question concern a mysterious young woman shivering naked in the road during that dark and stormy night when Miranda's trouble began. These images are from a vengeful spirit in Miranda's mind, causing her to question many things about her own beliefs in psychology - such as, maybe the patients that say they are hearing voices really are hearing voices - and that perhaps she herself is possessed.  
 
In an ironic twist, we find Miranda's own treatment mirroring her old therapies used on dangerous patients such as Chloe (Penelope Cruz), whose confessions of satanic torture were dismissed by the prude Miranda as ramblings. The problem with being crazy is that no matter what you say or how well you say it, they'll still think you're crazy.  
 
This would have been a welcoming topic to play upon even if it has been done before, but the moment comes and then it passes as a means to give the viewers an uneasy feeling.  
 
Halle as a criminal psychologist was not a believable job. She struggled on medical terminology and her character seemed unacquainted in her own environment. Miranda the patient was a more plausible impression, considering Halle Berry has a natural confused look on her face which enhances this role.  
 
The movie talks horror & fear but delivers none. The ambience has a natural feel for any "B" horror film, yet the actual scare tactics are implied by the storyline: The audience "needs" to be afraid for Miranda, but the writer & director assume we will be. Instead of walking us slowly through these moments, we are intended to use the totality of the movie as a "what if" scenario. - What if you were told that you did something terrible but you have no memory of doing it? -  
 
That's not scary.  
 
