There is nothing like the ambient dark space of a cinema to get one in the mood for a thrilling experience.

When the opportunity arose to preview new horror flick Winchester, I leapt at the chance to jump out of my skin in fear.

I went in having purposely not read the synopsis, with thoughts of Winchester guns and the television series Supernatural playing on my mind. I turned out to be half right, as this flick is inspired by the true story of Winchester house, also known as the ‘House that Ghosts Built’, which is a real-life property in America built by Sarah Winchester (Helen Mirren), whose late husband developed the Winchester rifle.

The film follows the firearm heiress who was convinced that she was haunted by the souls killed at the hands of the Winchester repeating rifle. After the sudden deaths of her husband and child, she threw herself into the 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week construction of an enormous mansion designed to keep the evil spirits at bay.

But when skeptical San Francisco psychiatrist Eric Price (Jason Clarke) is dispatched to the estate to evaluate her state of mind, he discovers that her obsession may not be so insane after all.

The movie had all the necessary elements of a Victorian Gothic horror: a psychiatrist , a suspected insane person, an old mansion, and of course, ghosts.

The house was built as an insane landscape for spirits to express their unfinished business. As such, the house was a mess of strange rooms and doors that led to nowhere.

The setting is cramped with narrow hallways and small spaces over-cluttered with ornamentation.

It was confusing seeing characters dart through the house, moving from room to room, which admittedly was the point, so the audience would too get lost in the strange labyrinth.

The actors flourished in the set and clothing design, completely in sync with the era they were portraying. Henry (Finn Scicluna-O’Prey), the tormented young boy, was truly disturbing as he mimed being possessed by an angry spirit.

Perfectly placed jump-scares frightened audiences, but never felt out of place with the flow of the film.

The story was well written, with dialogue that sounded completely natural.

The only thing that did not seem to connect well was the tool used to defeat the disturbed spirit. I wasn’t the only one entirely sure about how a ghost could be defeated by being shot but as Sarah Winchester states, “implements of death have power,” so maybe it does make a certain poetic sense.

A thoroughly entertaining and disturbing film, and definitely one of the best horror films to hit screens recently.

Readers also enjoyed this review of Liam Neeson’s The Commuter.