![]() The psychic told her that the spirits of those killed were seeking vengeance and that to save her own life, Sarah was to build a home for herself and the spirits that would never be finished. She was told that there was a curse upon the Winchester family because the guns they made had taken so many lives. "Winchester" does have its share of horror clichés, including the normal spooky music and camera tricks, but overall it is one of the better recent examples of the genre.Deeply saddened by the deaths of her daughter Annie in 1866 and her husband in 1881, Sarah consulted a psychic. Dame Helen receives good support from Jason Clarke, an actor I had not previously come across, as Price, a man haunted by a personal tragedy, and one which he shares with Sarah. She invests Sarah with a good deal of dignity, making her a woman who is eminently sane, even if much of the world believes her to be mad. The film-makers were greatly assisted by their coup in persuading an actress as distinguished as Dame Helen Mirren, an actress you wouldn't normally associate with haunted-house horror movies, to star in the leading role. Whereas the likes to "The Haunting in Connecticut" and the recent rehash of "The Amityville Horror" tried (very dubiously) to pass themselves off as "true" stories, "Winchester" builds upon an intriguing blend of true history, legend and outright fiction to produce something of much greater interest, a story which does not leave the viewer with a "seen-it-all-before" feeling. The cinematic ghost story can be a predictable, cliché-ridden genre, but "Winchester" brings a certain originality to it. The film received largely negative reviews from the critics, but I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I was going to. Particularly malevolent is the ghost of a young man who, to avenge the deaths of his brothers, Confederate soldiers cut down by the rifles of the Union army, killed several employees of the Winchester Company at their headquarters and was in his turn shot dead by the police. He initially believes that ghost stories are all a load of superstitious nonsense, but his acquaintance with Sarah Winchester and her extraordinary home soon persuades him to change his mind, and it becomes clear that he and Sarah are indeed threatened by vengeful spirits. (Was Price's surname chosen in homage to the late Vincent Price, a noted actor in horror films?) Price is that familiar figure from horror films, the sceptic who is proved wrong. They therefore appoint Eric Price, a psychiatrist, to examine her, hoping that he will declare her to be insane which will allow them to remove her from any position of control in the company. The officers of the Winchester company, still based in Connecticut, have heard rumours that Mrs Winchester, who still holds a controlling interest in the company even though she lives on the other side of the country, has gone mad and that she believes herself to be haunted by evil spirits. (A supernatural horror film based around the assumption that ghost stories are all a load of superstitious nonsense would not, I suspect, be a great success). The film, which is set in 1902 and has Sarah Winchester as its main character, assumes that the legends are true. The mansion still has the reputation of being one of the most haunted buildings in America. It was said that the house was haunted by the ghosts of all those who had been killed by guns manufactured by the Winchester company and that Sarah's obsessive compulsion to add yet more rooms to her ever-growing house was in fact an attempt to placate them. For many people, however, the main interest of the Winchester Mystery House lies in the legends which have grown up around it (and, indeed, had started to grow up even during Sarah's lifetime). ![]() It is said to have been left unfinished at Sarah Winchester's death, but it lacks any coherent plan and probably never would have been "finished" even if its owner had lived for many more years. The building, today known as the Winchester Mystery House, still exists and is a popular tourist attraction it is noted for oddities such as staircases and passageways which lead nowhere. Work on the house continued until Sarah's own death in 1922. Soon afterwards Sarah Winchester left her home in New Haven, Connecticut and moved to San Jose, California where she began building a vast, sprawling mansion. When William Winchester, the owner of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, died in 1881 he left his vast fortune to his widow Sarah, making her one of the wealthiest women in America. ![]() This film has nothing to do with the cathedral city in Hampshire.
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