A Cure for Wellness shows Gore Verbinski was born to be a horror director
Oscar-winning director returns to the genre that made his career, with a new movie that turns a critical eye on our restless and unfulfilling pursuit of perfection
A conversation starter for bored dinner party guests, “nominative determinism” is the theory that someone’s name destined them for whatever they ended up doing with their lives.
Think Bulgarian hurdler Vania Stambolova, BBC weather forecaster Sara Blizzard, singer Bill Medley or lavatory impresario Thomas Crapper.
So there was a certain inevitability in Oscar-winning American filmmaker Gore Verbinski becoming a horror director – although the big mystery is why he seemed to give it up when he’d only just got started.
The 52-year-old made his name in 2002 with The Ring, a remake of Japanese classic Ringu, scaring the wits out of a generation of fans with his spooky tale of a cursed videotape that kills anyone who sees it.
It became one of the highest-grossing supernatural horror movies of all time, recouping more than five times its US$48 million budget and spawning a subgenre of American remakes of “J-Horror” classics such as The Grudge and Dark Water.
Yet Verbinski stepped quietly away, letting other directors take over two poorly received sequels and turning with varying degrees of success to straight drama, a Western, an animated film and three Pirates of the Caribbean instalments.