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DVD Thirteen Ghosts
Cool sets, gory make-up, and frantic energy are given high priority in this glossy remake of William Castle's 1960 haunted-house chiller. The original boasted its "Illusion-O" ghost-viewing gimmick, so this remake's producers--as they did with 1999's The House on Haunted Hill--up the ante on Castle's showmanship by spilling ample amounts of blood, guts, and ghoulish glory. The plot's essentially the same: An impoverished family inherits a luxurious haunted mansion, only this time it's an elaborate, maze-like mechanism of glass, gears, and Latin incantations--"designed by the devil and powered by the dead"--with a cellar full of tormented, undead souls. As the family (including Tony Shalhoub and American Pie's Shannon Elizabeth) enlists the aid of a psychic (Scream alumnus Matthew Lillard) and a ghostbusting paranormal (Embeth Davidtz), this updated 13 Ghosts grows loud and ludicrous, trading shocks for yuks and nuance for nonsense. It's fun, to a point, after which it's just exhausting. --Jeff Shannon
This movie is just simply lame...that's all there is to it! Poorly done with a horrible cast and a lame script...that pretty much equals a lame movie and that pretty much sums up what we get in "Thirteen Ghosts".
Hey look, another awful horror movie of this generation!
One word describes this movie: pointless.
I love horror films, but this certainly isn't a horror film, it's bad acting and lots of special effects-- and the special effects are what brought people in. If you're stupid enough to be scared by special effects then see this film. If you're a fan of what you don't see is scarry, see The Changeling.
But not Scooby Doo's
Two stars - rewarded only for the cool sets and only for the ghosts themselves. Otherwise, this movie is amazingly bad.
Sitting through this movie with the mute button on, it may look promising. There are some great sets, including the house itself, and the make-up effects are well done. Turn on the sound and that all goes out the window. What is ultimately a cool idea gets trashed by a horrible script and even worse acting. Speaking of, I have no idea why F. Murray Abraham did this movie. He better have been so down on his luck that he was living in a cardboard box and eating shoes he found in dumpsters, because that is the only reason I would forgive him for starring in this horror wannabe. What next? I suppose Anthony Hopkins will star in the next Friday the 13th film.
But yes, the script and acting is atrocious. Take, for example, Rah Digga as Maggie Bess, Tony Shalhoub's housekeeper. She plays the typical wise-cracking black character who says incredibly bad lines like, "Did the lawyer just split?" which goes along with "Mind giving me a hand?" from "Sometimes They Come Back Again" as one of the worse film lines ever written. There's an even worse line when a lawyer confuses her for Tony's wife.
Maggie: "Uh uh! I ain't the misses!"
Bobby: "Mommy was burned in a fire!"
Wow, don't try to get over the grief guys!
A total letdown. I could mention many things that are better than seeing this movie, including:
1) Being hit by a train.
2) Shaving with a rusty spoon.
3) Eating one's own hand.
4) Doing a visectomy with your teeth.
5) Sticking your weenie in your car's ignition.
House on Haunted Hill is one of the new breed of waste-no-time thrill machines, like Deep Blue Sea, and a particularly effective example at that. The plot is pure contrivance: For a party stunt, a wealthy amusement-park manufacturer (Geoffrey Rush) offers five people a million dollars if they spend the night in a former insane asylum where the patients murdered the sadistic staff. But it turns out the five people who arrive aren't the five he invited--did his wife (Famke Janssen), who hates him, make the switch? From there events unfold with a smart combination of human and supernatural machinations; spooky jolts are dispensed at regular, but not entirely predictable, intervals. The visual effects owe a considerable debt to Jacob's Ladder, a much more ambitious... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Geoffrey Rush - Famke Janssen Director(s): William Malone DVD Release Date: Released the 18 April 2000 Usually ships in 24 hours
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While it offers nothing new for horror buffs, Ghost Ship relocates its haunted house clichés to an eerily effective setting. The Italian luxury liner Antonia Graza, its fate a mystery for 40 years, has suddenly reappeared in the chilly Bering Sea. Lured by a seemingly harmless proposition, Gabriel Byrne and Julianna Margulies lead a salvage crew (including Ron Eldard, Margulies's offscreen partner and fellow ER alumnus) to claim the wreck. But a grisly prologue--in which we witness the horrific fate of the ship's crew and passengers--makes it clear that bad things are going to happen. And they do... with the predictability of tomorrow's sunrise. The supporting cast is routinely dispatched, but their fates are determined amid outstanding art direction, slick... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gabriel Byrne - Julianna Margulies - Ron Eldard Director(s): Steve Beck DVD Release Date: Released the 28 March 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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With confident style and low-budget ingenuity, Jeepers Creepers gets under your skin, provoking spine-tingling horror when college siblings Trish (Gina Philips) and Darry (Justin Long) encounter a flesh-eating demon along a barren rural highway. After a harrowing car chase that sets the movie's nerve-wracking tone, they investigate suspicious activity near an abandoned church, where a corrugated pipe leads to unimaginable horrors. What follows is a cat-and-mouse game against the regenerating demon, which feeds on fear--and selected body parts--according to a psychic (Patricia Belcher) who adds chilling portent to the routine climax in a besieged police station. Writer-director Victor Salva (Powder) emphasizes primal fear over logic, but plot holes are easily forgiven when... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gina Philips - Justin Long Director(s): Victor Salva DVD Release Date: Released the 08 January 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Despite the usual symptoms of sequelitis, Jeepers Creepers 2 delivers the goods for those who enjoyed the 2001 original--a group large enough to propel this sequel to a record-setting opening in August 2003. While establishing the flesh-eating "Creeper" as a new horror icon with frantic action and more elaborate special effects, writer-director Victor Salva follows the traditional formula, dispensing with plot almost altogether and focusing entirely on threat, menace, mayhem, and gore. That's likely to disappoint horror fans hoping for a more revealing exploration of the Creeper's origins (room for another sequel, perhaps?), and by trapping nondescript teens in a school bus attacked by the Creeper, Salva severely limits the movie's overall potential. Still, there's something... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Ray Wise - Jonathan Breck - Nicki Lynn Aycox Director(s): Victor Salva DVD Release Date: Released the 23 December 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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It's not the scary hit that The Ring was in 2002, but The Grudge makes a similarly convincing case for American remakes of popular Japanese horror films. Barely a year passed between the release of Takashi Shimizu's creepy ghost story Ju-On: The Grudge and the production of this American remake, set in Tokyo and starring Sarah Michelle Gellar in her first post-Buffy horror film. About the only significant difference between the two films is the importing of a mostly-American cast (including Bill Pullman, Clea DuVall and Grace Zabriskie), but The Grudge was reconfigured (by screenwriter Stephen Susco) to allow Shimizu to refine and improve the spookiest highlights of his earlier version, which enjoyed previous incarnations as a short film and two... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Sarah Michelle Gellar - Jason Behr - Clea DuVall Director(s): Takashi Shimizu DVD Release Date: Released the 01 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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