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Zone's Eye View of "13 Ghosts" |
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Synopsis of movie, courtesy of Warner Bros.: 13 Ghosts is a state-of-the-art remake of the classic William Castle horror film about a family that inherits a spectacular old house from an eccentric uncle. There's just one problem: the house seems to have a dangerous agenda all its own. Trapped in their new home by strangely shifting walls, the family encounters powerful and vengeful entities that threaten to annihilate anyone in their path. Soon the family is joined by an offbeat ghost hunter who is determined to free the spirits imprisoned in the house. Caught in a frantic race to save themselves before it is too late, the human inhabitants realize the house is a riddle which contains the key to their imminent salvation - or destruction. Now for The Zone's Eye View By Laura Alber A totally over the top so-called horror film, which is instead, just a big show of special effects. 13 Ghosts uses all the usual clichés of a horror film set in a house; the ghosts in the basement, the unsuspecting (and naïve) family, the cheesy dialogue they are supposed to pull off convincingly, as much blood as the storage facility can hold, and special effects which are ‘supposed’ to scare you, but all they do is “show off” the skills of the FX masters. The film begins with a typical family devastated by a fire that takes their house, and burns the mother alive. Nice beginning, huh? The remaining members of the family, Dad (Tony Shalhoub), adult daughter (Shannon Elizabeth), a young son (Alec Roberts) and for some reason, a nanny (rapper Rah Digga). This seems unusual since after the fire, the family is in financial ruins and the dad just sits around sulking in his robe all day looking at all the past due notices he puts on the wall. Their uncle Cyrus (F. Murray Abraham), who they don’t even know yet, is in the process of ‘capturing’ ghosts at a salvage yard full of smashed and stacked cars. He and his team of “ghost catchers” all wear their “special glasses” which allows them to see these ghosts so they can trick them into the ghost holding chamber. If this sounds completely ridiculous so far, it’s because it is. Matthew Lillard plays Cyrus’ (Abraham) right hand man since he is some sort of psychic himself and can see what is going to happen before it does happen, which is evidently a great help to Cyrus. Well, things don’t go so well at the old salvage yard, and the ghosts decide to crush a few humans to go along with the cars, so we have a major bloodbath going on here. Included in the massacre is Cyrus, the leader of the Ghostly Group. We then see ourselves back at the destitute family’s home. Enter the attorney who informs the broke family that they indeed have a rich uncle and they inherited everything, including his house. Probate must be a lot faster in Hollywood, because that night they decide to go to their “new house”. When they arrive they are amazed at the mansion they see. This is possibly the one thing where the film differs from the standard flicks, the look of the house. It is made entirely of glass with etchings on each window and door, which is supposed to be Latin spells to keep the ghosts at bay. Surprisingly, this doesn’t seem to register with the family that maybe something isn’t right…instead; they start touring the monstrous house. And, sure enough, they all end up in the basement, and then the real fun begins. It seems this is where Cyrus has locked up his 12 ghosts, awaiting the 13th. The rest is just too absurd to go into a lot of detail. Tony Shalhoub is always fun to see on the big screen, but this was a bad decision on his part. Even though his acting was good, it was overshadowed by the special effects of the movie. Shannon Elizabeth proves to us once again, that she can’t act her way out of a paper bag. You tell me, why would you tour a house, stop at the bathtub, turn it on, and splash your face with the water? Was the water at her old house not clean enough to do this? No, it was just a ploy to get the teenage and middle age boys to watch a semi-sexual scene with Elizabeth. The little boy, Alec Roberts was adorable. He had some very cute parts including playing tag with the nanny (Rah Digga), and riding his scooter everywhere he went. Matthew Lillard played pretty much the same part he did in Scream. I don’t know how he’s going to pull off Scooby Doo, but that’s another story all together. The dialogue was tacky and senseless, the camera work was an obvious ego boost for the cinematographer, the set designer made sure to use the entire budget to make this house as ridiculously unreal as possible, the makeup artists got to use all their gore makeup to make some off the wall ghosts. All in all, this entire movie was a total mess. It gave me nightmares, not from the movie itself, but the prospect of having to watch it again! What was Director Steve Beck thinking? He ignored his cast completely and instead made a technical extravaganza with special effects. Bad move. The Zone gives this “horror-able” movie a 1 out of 10.
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