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The socialite heiress made a splash when she moved to San Jose from Connecticut in 1884 following the death of her husband, William (and their baby 15 years prior). A possessed Henry attempts to kill Sarah with a rifle, but is stopped by Eric and Marion. Realizing how violent this spirit is, Sarah sends her staff away and decides to personally remove the ghost from her home. He and Sarah identify the ghost as Benjamin Block, a Confederate States Army soldier who lost his two brothers in the American Civil War, killed by Winchester rifles. A devastated Ben proceeded to shoot up a Winchester office, massacring the workers before being shot dead by police. Ben has been the one possessing Henry; the constructed room with the Winchester guns is the room where he was shot dead.
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Sarah Winchester is the widow of famed gun manufacturer William Wirt Winchester. Her husband's sudden death and the previous death of their child Annie have left her in grief. Having received more than twenty million dollars in inheritance, Winchester convinces herself she is cursed by the ghosts of those who died at the hands of Winchester firearms. After seeking advice from a medium, she begins building an enormous, seemingly never-ending mansion in San Jose, California that would eventually be named the Winchester Mystery House. The house is under constant construction and Sarah's niece Marion Marriott lives in the house with her son Henry.
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Ensconced in her sprawling San Jose, California mansion, eccentric firearm heiress Sarah Winchester (Dame Helen Mirren) believes she is haunted by the souls of people killed by the Wincheste... After the house was emptied, a local investor purchased the home for a cool $135,000. Just five months after Sarah Winchester died, the Winchester Mystery House was opened to the public for tours. These spirits are reportedly what called Winchester to make so many illogical additions to the home.
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She gave no interviews, left behind no journals, and had no family willing to speak about her. After appraisers deemed the house worthless due to its strange design, damage from the earthquakes, and long-winded construction, Marion took everything in it and auctioned it off. The current owners of the house claim it took six weeks to empty the house of all furniture, though the report is uncorroborated.
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The next day, Eric begins to conduct his assessment of Sarah's mental well-being. She reveals that she knows about Eric's drug problem and confiscates his supply of laudanum. That night, Eric witnesses a seemingly possessed Sarah draw a plan for a new room. The next day, Sarah shows Eric that she keeps records of people killed by Winchester rifles. It is revealed that Eric had actually been shot and killed by a Winchester rifle before being revived, and he keeps the refurbished bullet with him.
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Moving to California
In the years Sarah Winchester lived in the house, the residents of San Jose whispered about its strange construction and even stranger inhabitant, but it was in the years after her death that the wild stories became even wilder. Out of the 13 bathrooms in the home, only one was functional, in an effort to confuse any ghosts wishing to haunt a spigot. Furthermore, she would sleep in a different room every night in the Winchester house, and use secret passageways to get from room to room so that no spirits could follow her.
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If you've visited San Jose, California, one of the first things you'll probably hear about from locals and tourists alike is the story of the Winchester Mystery House. Today, the Victorian and Gothic styled mansion can be found smack in the middle of one of the busiest areas of the city. But back when it was purchased in 1886 by the Winchester rifle heiress, Sarah Winchester, the original home was the only building of note on the 45-acre ranch. In the hands of Winchester, the modest two-story, eight-room farmhouse was renovated into a 24,000-square-foot, sprawling property containing 160 rooms, 2,000 doors,10,000 windows, 47 stairways and fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, and six kitchens.
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However, tragedy struck in her late twenties when Annie died, followed by the death of Sarah’s husband William more than a decade later. There was no plan – no official blueprints were drawn up, no architectural vision was created, and yet a once-unfinished house took shape on a sprawling lot in the heart of San Jose, California. Inside, staircases ascended through several levels before ending abruptly, doorways opened to blank walls, and corners rounded to dead ends.
Due to the lack of a plan and the presence of an architect, the house was constructed haphazardly; rooms were added onto exterior walls resulting in windows overlooking other rooms. Multiple staircases would be added, all with different sized risers, giving each staircase a distorted look. The property then continued with some construction projects and restoration work to make it more of a cultural and tourist destination. In 1970, major restoration to bring the mansion back to its heyday began, and then in 1974, the Winchester Mystery House was granted state historic landmark status.
Ben attempts to murder Sarah, but the pair realizes that Ben is scared of the bullet Eric kept. Eric has been able to see the ghosts in the house due to his dying from that bullet beforehand. Eric uses the bullet in the rifle that Ben used in the shooting and banishes him.
Eric is grieving from the death of his wife Ruby and is reliant on drugs. He arrives at the house and has a ghostly vision that he believes is a side-effect of the drugs he has taken. Later, he spots a ghost in the basement and witnesses a possessed Henry jump off the roof. Since her death, little has been uncovered about Sarah Winchester and the reasoning behind her obsession with building the Winchester Mystery House.
After her death in September of 1922, Sarah Winchester left all of her belongings to her niece, Marion, who had served as her personal secretary later in life. However, the Winchester Mystery House was never mentioned in her will, adding to the mystery of the home. Additionally, Winchester insisted that the home be built exclusively out of redwood – however, she didn’t like the look of the wood, so she insisted it be covered with a stain and a faux grain. By the time the house was completed, over 20,000 gallons of paint had been used to cover the wood.
Helen Mirren plays the widowed Sarah Winchester, thought to be insane as she orders constant expansion and renovation of her bizarre Victorian mansion. By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes. By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies, and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands.
Possible explanations vary from an attempt to confuse haunting spirits to design miscues resulting from constant construction. The movie riffs on the oft-repeated legend that Winchester had been instructed by a spiritual medium to keep building to ward off the spirits haunting the house. But there's no indication of that in Winchester's letters or those of her confidantes, Boehme says. In 1906, the Winchester company hires Doctor Eric Price to stay at the house and assess Sarah, believing she is mentally unfit to remain in charge of the company.
They never had another child, and just 15 years later, Sarah lost her husband, her mother, and her father-in-law to the plague of her time, tuberculosis. She inherited $20 million, but that didn't make her heart any less broken. Lonely and looking to start anew, she packed up her things in Connecticut and moved to San Jose, California, where she bought the aforementioned ranch.
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