Directors Michael and Peter Spierig, better known as The Spierig Brothers, based their supernatural horror film Winchester (2018) on the real-life occurrences of Sarah Winchester and the house she never stopped building. In paranormal pop culture, it is nearly impossible to escape hearing the story of the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California. The home has appeared in travel television programs and as the backdrop for a multitude of horror films. Michael and Peter Spierig took up the task of crafting a semi-biographical, but fictional account of Sarah and the notorious mansion.
Starring Helen Mirren as Sarah Winchester, the film follows the aftermath of the death of her husband and their daughter, Annie. The family is none other than the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Sarah is left with approximately twenty million dollars which she uses to expand the house due to the belief that the spirits killed by the Winchester rifle will not be satisfied until they decide she has completed the mansion. The film largely speculates who may or may not have died by a Winchester rifle and overly dramatizes the events surrounding the constant construction of the home. It attempts to assert that the hauntings stopped, as did Sarah’s building, but it did not.
Ultimately, Winchester received overwhelming negative reviews that resulted in a nomination for Worst Picture. It told the historical story of Sarah, the Winchester family, and the complex mythology of the hauntings in an overly disappointing manner. Winchester did not do any aspect of the Winchester Mystery House justice. Here's what actually happened and who Sarah Winchester really was.
Who Was Sarah Winchester?
Sarah Winchester was born in New Haven, Connecticut on an unknown date in 1839. When she was twenty-three, she married William Wirt Winchester. His father was the founder of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company and William, as his only son, would inherit it once he passed away. The couple only had one child named Annie, who died of a disease that leads to severe malnutrition. In 1881, William followed his daughter to the grave after struggling with tuberculosis. The moment he passed, Sarah became a millionaire and made one-thousand dollars a day, but nothing could console her grief. As a result, she visited a psychic medium.
The medium supposedly channeled her late husband who instructed her to move to California to build a home for herself and the spirits of the people who were killed by Winchester rifles. Some speculate that Sarah moved in order to heal and build a new life away from the trauma of Connecticut, but others believe that she bore the burden of appeasing the restless spirits. In 1884, she purchased what would become the Winchester Mystery House in Santa Clara Valley. When Sarah died on September 5, 1922, the house never reached her idea of completion, but its ornate design, architecture, and legend became a historical symbol that represents the existence of the supernatural.
The Winchester Home’s Haunting Explained
The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was founded in 1866 by Oliver Winchester, father of William and father-in-law to Sarah. They were the most popular production company of firearms in the 19th century and provided their equipment to nearly every major battle or war at the time. Sarah Winchester was told by the Boston medium that she had to build the Santa Clara Valley home to appease those who died because of the firearms she and her family profited on. She supposedly felt a deep sense of regret and guilt for the innocent lives that were taken as a result of their firearms, despite not being the person to enact any of the killings. Regardless, she built the Winchester Mystery House for the restless spirits.
The haunting of the mansion is explained by the ornate nature of its architecture. Sarah built doors that led to nowhere, staircases that abruptly ended, windows built on the inside of the house, and detailed design elements that created a bizarre feeling within the home. At its most complete, the mansion had two basements, 47 fireplaces, 161 rooms, and stood at seven stories. It does not have any actual blueprints. The confusing nature of the house’s construction led outsiders to believe in the house’s haunting. It is such a deeply unsettling place that it is assumed to be haunted. There is little to no proof that it actually is, but that does not discredit Sarah’s experiences within the home that no one else but her can attest to.
Every Death That Happened On The Property
Winchester depicts the mansion as the setting of numerous deaths and mysterious disappearances. This has followed the Winchester Mystery House throughout its entire existence, but there is no proof that anyone died, besides Sarah, on the property. There are no concrete facts that the house caused people to die, that the spirits took others to the great beyond, or forced them to get lost within its walls by mysteriously moving doors or walls. It is all speculation that has been emphasized through the legend and numerous films that depict the Winchester Mystery House.
While the mini-series Rose Red (2002) is not directly linked to the Winchester legend, it does tell an eerily similar story to Sarah’s. In this particular film, Ellen Rimbauer is left with her oil tycoon husband’s fortune and builds a home made up of halls that lead to nowhere, doors that do not open, and more. It indirectly tells the story of Sarah Winchester’s determination to build the mansion for the spirits of the house through Ellen Rimbauer. Except, Rose Red’s mansion kills people, inadvertently perpetuating the rumors that the Winchester Mystery House does the same. These are two separate stories that people have lumped together. Sarah Winchester’s mansion never killed anyone at all, based on the current evidence.
The Winchester Home Today
Today, all are welcome to explore the Winchester Mystery Home on a guided tour of the supernatural location. It is easy to get lost in the mansion, but it is open to the public regardless. The home is such an immaculate piece of architectural history that upholds an even darker past filled with death, despair, grief, and tragedy. Sarah Winchester did not just build a mysterious mansion, she created one of the most significant symbols of the paranormal and the powers it can supposedly hold over individuals. While it's not in the same shape it was in nearly one-hundred years ago, the remnants of the past bleed through and evoke a sense of what the mansion once looked like.
Michael and Peter Spierig’s Winchester does not express the importance of Sarah Winchester in the history of real-life horror, but it does highlight the purpose of her nonstop building. The Winchester Mystery House is a remarkable landmark in and of itself. However, the paranormal aspects explored in Winchester only sheds a fraction of light on the importance of Sarah Winchester, the house, the spirits, and her larger purpose.