Special Halloween Episode!
Thirteen Ghosts
Christ, this movie legitimately tried to have a number 13 in its title when spelled out, like Seven did with the number 7 replacing its V. In the title of this movie, it attempts to spell itself as Thir13en Ghosts, with the number 13 replacing a T and E. Seriously?
The director of this thing is Steve Beck and he has a visual effects background, having worked with Industrial Light and Magic for years. His resume includes some impressive credits, not the least of which is my personal long-time favorite movie, 1989’s “The Abyss.” He also worked on the effects team on “The Hunt for Red October” and “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”
Around the turn of the century, he got a chance to make two ghost movies, this flick in 2001 and “Ghost Ship” in 2002. The pair definitely have a lot in common, not the least of which is the bizarre distinction of having two immensely memorable, graphic kill sequences which are followed by utterly forgettable and surprisingly unscary stories. Those kills really are incredible too. In this one a dude gets sliced in half, foot-to-skull, by having two razor sharp sliding doors close on him while he stands staring in surprise. Unbelievable to watch as his whole front just slides down the glass while the back of him is still suctioned to the glass, bisected brain and all. This single moment was almost as good as the cold open of “Ghost Ship” which, honest-to-God, might be one of the most terrifying and disturbing openings to a movie I have ever seen!
These two flicks would be the only two features Beck would helm, although the company he worked with, “Dark Castle Entertainment” – run by director Robert Zemeckis and producers Joel Silver and Gil Adler, kept releasing stuff, including 2012’s “Apparition” and 2021’s “Seance.” Add those to 1999’s “House on Haunted Hill” and its 2007 sequel, and you can see they could probably populate most of our “Bottom Five” for this episode themselves.
Anyhow, both of Beck’s two Dark Castle movies boast some impressive production design, with 13 Ghosts central “Ghost House” really being a knockout in terms of its nifty glass walls etched with latin phrases which act as a kind of Ghost Trap. It’s a well-made movie with a slick-look that reminded me of David Fincher’s music videos for Aerosmith and Madonna, but oh man… the editing.
This thing probably needed a seizure warning accompanying it. At one point, Matthew Lillard – the half of the murderous duo from “Scream” that wasn’t Skeet Ulrich – says that he has a special ability to see ghosts and that these visions cause him violent seizures. It’s super-obvious to me that the filmmakers here wanted the audience to experience the same. So many flashing edits and sloppy jump cuts. So much slow-motion into fast-motion. God, it’s a mess. If there are 2000 cuts in this movie, I have to say at least 1500 of them are unnecessary and probably scored with some kind of thunderous metal-clanging sound or ghostly WOOOSH. It’s beyond irritating and, at times, it feels downright irresponsible.
The story involves Lillard’s character, named Dennis, who is a clairvoyant that’s helping an eccentric rich guy named Cyrus catch 13 distinctive ghosts in accordance with some kind of prophecy and will, in turn, provide him with mega-powers over time. Or something. All I know is F. Murray Abraham is in this for a paycheck but, as Cyrus, seems to be having fun playing a sadistic rich turd and it’s a bit of a surprise when he and his swat team of ghost-hunters bite it in a junkyard in the first five minutes during an insanely noisy and nonsensical cold open.
Cut to a nice credits sequence which introduces us to Tony Shaloub and his lovely family of four who, while the names of cast and crew are rolling, suffer an enormous tragedy offscreen when a fire breaks out in the family’s home. It’s a neat sequence, with a continuous scan of the walls of Shaloub’s room dissolving from his idyllic past to a decrepit present . That said, the off-camera sound of the fire and screaming and crying is laughable.
Turns out that Shaloub’s wife died in the fire and now he and his two kids live in a ramshackle apartment with a random constant nanny who they somehow have enough money to pay. I don’t understand this family dynamic at all, because it seems oldest daughter Shannon Elizabeth should be able to watch her little brother but they have this nanny they can’t afford because… reasons? It’s implausible and dumb, but not as implausible as what’s next when a slick lawyer shows up and tells Shaloub that, hey, your crazy uncle CYRUS has died and left you this big-ass house two hours outside the city.
I’ve got questions about commutes and the practicality of just up and leaving for the country, but Shaloub and the entire crew – including the freaking Nanny – all head to the house to immediately see the several bathrooms because apparently the bottom rung of the American experience is living in an apartment with one bathroom for three people. Or four if we count the Nanny.
So the lawyer IMMEDIATELY brings them to the house and all Hell soon breaks look because the house itself is a fucking giant ecto-containment unit with this crazy machine at its center that, once the 13 Ghosts are collected, will allow the owner the ability to control time. Or something. I don’t know, at the point they tried tried to explain this, Matthew Lillard had inexplicably changed from an electric company worker disguise into this 90’s club-kid outfit. And the machine? I couldn’t look at it and not think “That’s the Lionsgate Logo!” All these clockwork looking gears and such, but rendered in cheap CGI? I was instantly hoping a better movie would start.
Everyone’s wearing these funky Ghost Vision glasses that allow them to see the 12 ghosts Cyrus and Dennis had captured. Each ghost is almost comically overdone in ghastly ways, like a dude with a head full of what look like railroad spikes, a teenager with a wooden baseball bat that shoots sparks out of it and a generously-bosomed, razor-wielding naked suicide victim who turns water to blood when all Shannon Elizabeth wants to do is cool her face with water in her glorious new bathroom.
Obviously one of these assholes is the key 13th ghost needed to activate the machine, a ghost created when someone sacrifices life for love.
It’s all unbelievably stupid, not scary and when F. Murry Abraham shows up again, and there’s a third-act reveal of an alleged protagonist being the world’s stupidest, unmotivated antagonist, I was begging this movie to stop flashing at me and just END ALREADY.
But you know what the worst thing is? The tonal shifts between this movie being a horror movie but largely featuring actors who are acting in the style of a rom-com. It’s painfully upbeat and superficial when suddenly naked murderous ghosts start showing up. Then the movie BEGS you to take it seriously when Tony Shaloub, upon discovering his dead wife is one of the 12 ghosts in the house, SHEDS A PERFECT TEAR. This movie did not deserve Shaloub. It deserved nothing. It’s a brainless, excessive, painfully idiotic exercise in parading flop horror tropes.
Poor Tony Shaloub’s tear. At least we caught an obligatory glance at Shannon Elizabeth’s mega-chest when, of course, her shirt is mostly slashed away during a ghost attack. Somehow, and to my profound disappointment, this same shirt heals itself magically later, making me think the editors just tossed in a brief booby clip that wasn’t even the actress. I would not put it past them, as this movie is a Gimmick itself – the gimmick being its a remake of a movie that was itself a gimmck.
So Dark Castle, the production company responsible for this mess, is actually named for filmmaker William Castle who was a b-movie maestro in the 1960’s best known for movies that featured enhancements like skeletons with glowing red eyes hovering on strings through theaters and electric shockers attached to chairs. In the 1960 original version of 13 Ghosts, Castle shot the movie in Illusion-O and distributed it with glasses that would either make the ghosts appear or disappear, depending on the lens you watched through. Pretty neat, and one of the only clever aspects of the remake is how in incorporated the glasses idea into the movie as the characters can only see the ghosts when they have the glasses on.
Incidentally, the original 13 Ghosts is a far superior story and, while stilted with wooden performances, is much more interesting and engaging to watch.
Live Notes!
Wow, now that is some next level surround sound mix!
Style feels like a Stephen Hopkins movie.
Holy wow, some seriously wacky acting kicking things off between Matthew Lillard and F Murray Abraham
Good lord, strobe light madness
This thing feels like a nightmare on elm street cousin
So much wind and condensed breath and lightning
Imaginative kills right off the top with some junkyard cars crushing dudes that look like a cross between volunteer firefighters and kids at a foam rave
Always amazed at how any piece of metal becomes a guillotine in these movies.
Kickass anchored credits sequence showing the changing environment around Shaloub’s character. Pretty clever sequence after a shitty cold open. Feels like a totally different movie.
Monk Is Shannon Elizabeth’s dad? The fuck?
I bequeath this key to the starship enterprise lol
This acting is more like what you would expect out of a sitcom – everything is super broad and heavy handed
Killer production design! Gorgeous etched glass
Lillard, the psychic, asking what the hell is that when hit with visions similar to those he clearly already saw at the beginning. Good god
The lawyer kill might be among the grossest kills I have ever seen in any movie. AMAZING.
That ghost has quite a rack.
Ghost glasses! Kind of sweet.
You know what is not scary? Slow motion!
Did his wife burn… outside?!
Why is this movie edited like a Nine Inch Nails video?
Oh boy, a Ghost House Rube Goldberg machine.
Matthew Lillard randomly changes into a house party outfit. The fuck? Where did the clothes come from?
ha, the heart of the house is the Lionsgate logo with all the gears and shit.
Live in babysitter, ok. In this economy?
Definitely interested in paying tribute to the William Castle original. A gimmick itself about a dude who made movies filled with gimmicks.
Love how the ghost that attacks Shannon Elizabeth scratches her shirt apart so we get a quick glimpse of titty in peril
Tony Shaloub wastes a perfect tear shot on this? I am deeply troubled.
why is a wooden bat making sparks…
On glass?!?
Gotta give it up for the twist for the wife being in the house. Not bad at all.
The old, oh he’s so hurt and then three scenes later he is totally fine thing with Shaloub’s back
Lillard, he’s swinging for the tenses is the stupidest fucking line in a while.
The good gal was a bad guy? The fuck?!
This movie does not deserve Tony Shaloub!
Record scratches… on a reel to reel tape?!
Ghost Mathew Lillard is suddenly a cool cat? Jesus. This fucking movie.
Black babysitter gives a stereotypical freak out quip and smash cut to credits with a rap song. Fucking Hell, the 90’s. This is straight out of GI Joe, Mask, or Transformers cartoons with everyone laughing at the end of the episode.
Kudos to the movie for having a middle age dad as a protagonist, though. Kind of a neat
Bottom Five Ghosts
I love ghost movies, so this one is a little tough for me because where some people find fault with movies like “The Amityville Horror,” I find myself super primed for a good, scary time. As such, most paranormal flicks are pretty much my jam, but every once in a while there’s something – even in a movie I might like – that makes me roll my eyes. So that’s my approach to this list: not ghosts that I wouldn’t want to encounter, but ghosts that are just plain dumb or ill-rendered.
Grandma – Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)
I love this movie SO MUCH, but by GOD, in the third act there is a moment so dumb, so brazenly cheesy that I cannot blame most for thinking its a terrible sequel and nothing more. And that’s when, having traveled to the “other side” after jumping into a mystical fire, Carol Anne floats off toward the light, having been separated by her family who have banished big baddy Kane. Distraught they have lost her again, as they had in the first movie but this time for good, the rest of the family look on with joy as THE DEAD GRANDMA from earlier in the movie flies out of heaven and brings Carol Anne back to the rest. It’s a bizarre sequence, with tragically comical greenscreen that I was more than down to accept. But yeah,. that was just plain silly.
Valak, the Demon Nun – The Nun (2018)
This is a bit of an odd choice, because I really did like The Conjuring 2, where Valak the demon Nun first shows up – WHERE? Yep, the Amityville Horror House. Immediately, I’m in, because I’m also a sucker for ghosts that are represented through art or recordings. So when our man Ed Warren, played by Patrick Wilson, starts painting Valak after his wife Lorraine, Vera Farmiga, sees the apparition in Amitville, I was stoked. And throughout Conjuring 2, I was riding along with the idea accepting enough, if not totally loving the pay-off by the end of that film. Then in 2018, we got “The Nun” which was an enormously successful spin-off for the Conjuring Universe and… wow, was it ever-underwhelming. I would call this movie “The None,” NONE because that’s the amount I remember it. None. Somehow they turned this rather exciting, threatening, frightful demon into a total weak-sauce prequel with lots of talk and a very, very lethargic pace. So while I do like “Valak,” it earns a place on my list for getting its own full story and totally being crap in the spotlight.
The Overlook Hotel Gaggle o’ Ghosts – Dr. Sleep (2019)
Let me say this straight off, I really appreciate the amazing balancing act Mike Flanagan pulls off with Dr. Sleep, where he both wrote and directed a sequel to Kubrick’s “The Shining” while honoring the source material of King’s “The Shining” and “Dr. Sleep” books. I mean, the courage – perhaps the audacity, even – to pull something like this off is staggering. And for almost the entire running time of Dr. Sleep, Flanagan manages to thread the needle. And though it is delicious poetic justice at the end of the film, the come-uppance Rebecca Ferguson’s Rose the Hat receives from the denizens of the overlook hotel just comes off as goofy fan service, turning Kubrick’s legitimately terrifying apparitions into a group of weirdo, off-beat superheros that dole out just desserts.
Terrence Mann – Field of Dreams (1989)
This isn’t a bad movie. This is a terrific movie, but with one very weird plot-hole that I could never get past, and as a result, it sort of sinks the movie a bit in my estimation. We all know Terrence Mann, as played with a warm kind of gruffness by James Earl Jones, appears alive, but there’s very little interaction with him by any characters other than Kevin Costner’s Ray Kinsella. Yeah, he’s seen by others, but then again, Ray sees ghosts as do others in the movie. And by the end of the movie, it seems like Mann certainly either is a ghost or has died or something because he’s allowed to go into the cornfield with all of the ghost players. I’d love to ask Phil Alden Robinson what he thought, because there’s also a bit of nonsensical time travel in this movie, when Ray goes back to 1972, so really, I feel the logic is all over the place here. And if Terrence is a ghost, well, then he’s a terrible version of the Bruce Willis ghost in The Sixth Sense and Field of Dreams becomes a bit of botched storytelling due to the inconsistency with which Mann is treated (like, what ghost still has an apartment after it dies? Perhaps an eccentric author!)
Hugh Crain and the Ghost Cherubs – The Haunting (1999)
Robert Wise created, with his adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s “The Haunting of Hill House” one of the most memorable ghost stories ever set to film. His “The Haunting” from 1963 is a gold standard for its clever balance of ghostly elements with character psychology. Any lessons to be gleaned from the original’s mastery were ignored ruthlessly with Jan de Bont’s graceless “The Haunting” from 1999, which apparently started as a collaboration between Steven Speilberg and Stephen King, but devolved into a loud, shallow and ultimately really goofy story about an angry child-hating ghost that manifests in a swirl of bad CGI to yell at Lily Taylor and decapitate Owen Wilson. It’s laughably rendered, with Lily Taylor somehow winning out and banishing the ghost into a bronze door because “she’s not afraid” of him. I love ghosts and I love Catherine Zeta-Jones. But I cannot love these ghosts with Catherine Zeta-Jones. I can only imagine what this cast could have done with a real script that was more interested in characters than cocophany. Zero stars for all these stars. Put a fork in it. There should have been a mutiny on deBont-y.
Recommendation:
We’re talking all this horror and ghosts, so my recommendation which combines both, along with our ever-growing concerns around technology taking away our humanity, is “Pulse” or “Kairo,” the 2001 film from Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa. This thing is a patience tester, and it feels a bit like slow cinema, but it pays off with its rich ideas about loneliness and our isolation in modern society due to our ever-growing dependence on technology. That it’s set at the turn of the century, only furthers the sense of dread it carries about the future of its characters, and society as a whole. The basic premise of the film is that ghosts are encroaching on the world of the living via the internet, and those that interact with these ghosts themselves become these ashen shadows that are left behind staining walls and floors. We trace two central, separate characters – a flower-shop worker named Michi and Ryosuke, a goofy university student. Each begin to experience strange events when coming into contact with new technology, in Michi’s case a disc created by her co-worker and in Ryosuke’s story, his signing on to a new internet service provider. The plot meanders, with little spikes of terror until the characters finally meet at what feels like the beginning of the end of our world as more and more people succumb to this “death of loneliness.” It’s an excellent movie, extremely unique in terms of its windy narrative, but it pays off nicely and will leave you thinking about it long after the end credits roll.
For Mike next week: The Beyond (1981)
I like a lot of Italian things. I like calamari, pizza, Monica Bellucci. But one thing I have to admit to is not totally loving Italian cinema. Oh sure, there’s a Sergio Leone picture here or there I’d watch again, and yeah, for sure, Dario Argento does have some good work. And while I do so very much adore Lamberto Bava’s “Demons,” I’d be just as likely to watch that again as I would Kevin Tenney’s “Night of the Demons,” made here in the good ol U S of A. And, let’s be real for a minute, some of the plots, production values and – ugh – acting featured in “classic” Italian cinema is… anything but classic. Look, I make space in my schedule for Luca Guadinino and I’d be a fool to trifle with Antonioni or… you know, freaking Fellini. But most of their work is a one-and-done thing for me, something to be appreciated, catalogued and not-necessarily revisited. Alas, one dude is always lauded as a true hero of Italian cinema, revered as God among horror hounds and cherished so much that he is called “The Godfather of Gore.” That man, Lucio Fulci, best known for 1979’s “Zombie” and 1980’s “City of the Walking Dead.” I think his movies are tripe, and so, for our next episode Mike, I’m hitting you with one of Fulci’s most “love-it-or-hate-it” affairs, 1981’s “The Beyond.” And oh, how I hope you agree with me and thus do not enjoy more than five minutes of its merciful 87 minute running time. Because if you’re anything like me, this will be way BEYOND a test of your patience.