Starring: Tony Shalhoub, Embeth Davidtz, Matthew Lillard, Shannon Elizabeth, Alec Roberts Directed By: Steve Beck Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Warner Home Video Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: April 02, 2002 Running Time: 91 minutes Theatrical Release Date: October 26, 2001
Description: A family inherits an elegant steel-and-glass mansion from a deceased relative. The catch is that along with the house comes a slew of ghosts that can be seen only through special goggles.
Amazon.com: 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
Steve Beck Remakes another movie, leaving out the good parts So he already destroyed one of the greatest haunted house movies of all time "House on Haunted Hill". I was already upset that once again Steve Beck (The Director) was remaking another movie. How about we come up with something new here. Well needless to say I went into this film with no expectations what so ever, which turned out to be a good thing.
The best scene of the film comes right at the beginning (So wait to get your popcorn until later into the film, just don't miss the opening) We begin in a Junkyard full of dangerous looking metal and sharply twisted vehicles. Here we meet Matthew Lillard as Rafkin (I know most of you hate him but I find him quite funny) a pill popping psychic who is one step from losing his last grasp of reality. He steps is in this god forsaken junkyard with F. Murray Abraham (Uncle Cyrus) an instantly dislikable character (Which means he's the bad guy) and about 50 other random people in bio suits. After the opening scene (which ii quite bloody and rather interesting) We discover that they are a bunch of Ghost Trappers and this is the 12th ghost they have trapped in one of these lovely glass boxes with writing all over it.
End of really cool beginning (Go get popcorn now)
Now we segue into a family scene, Tony Shalhaub plays Arthur the loving father of two, Shannon Elizabeth as Kathy, and Alec Roberts as Bobby. They are a poor family that has lost their mother. They have creditors calling but amazingly can afford to pay Maggie (Rah Digga the token ethnic woman in the movie) to be the nanny that doesn't seem to do anything.
Well to sum up and not give too much away, they suddenly find out that they have inherited this huge house made entirely of glass (covered in the same writings as the ghost catcher in the first scene). Once the go in, surprise surprise they get locked in along with Lillard who posed as an electrician and Kalina (the token exposition character "Oh your confused, let me pull out my handy book that explains the whole movie and sum up a few passages for you")
That's all of the story I'll go into. Now for my opinion of the movie:
This is a tough one, the acting was flat, especially on the part of the family. Lillard gave his best "I'm losing it" attempt but the whole cast seemed to walk tiredly through the script. No one except Lillard seemed overly concerned with the fact that they could all be killed at any moment, and even he gave in at the promise of money.
I have to admit, that this movie did entertain me... I was refreshed at the fact that the ghosts were made with makeup and not computer generated. The sets were brilliant and actually seemed to be the star of the film. The make up crew did go a little overboard with the ghost costumes, the one which is supposed to be a naked woman looked less real than a blow up doll. There was just way too much overzealousness to create "Scary" that made it look more campy than frightening.
The storyline was filled with glaring plot holes and the infamous "this is supposed to shock you" plot twist that you will see coming from the first scene. The tension is built around the fact that the ghosts can only be seen through these special glasses that for some reason there is only enough for one person in the group to ever see the ghosts.
Why is the movie a full 2 hours if these people are so outmatched by these terrifyingly evil ghosts? Because apparently you can see a ghost and if you slowly back away they will leave you alone. Also unless you trip you can out run them.
Another disappointing part of the movie is the misuse of several of the ghosts who end up becoming random set pieces.
So with the bad acting, campy looking ghosts, and typical holey script, is this movie worth watching? My answer is a big fat maybe. If you are in the mood for a campy horror flick that won't scare you too bad, then rent this on video, otherwise wait until it's on TV, watch the opening scene and leave it at that.
Recommended: No
Love this Movie. I love this movie. The ghosts are just so cool. Slow movement is awesome. Anyway overall it is a good scary movie. Plus I love the black girl in it. She is so funny.
Visually Worth It, But That's It You'll like what you see, but the rest you can do without. The acting is completely unbelievable. The best jobs are by Maggie the babysitter whose humor is the second best part of this movie and Cyrus the uncle.
You'll enjoy the special features of this DVD, which include behind the scenes footage of the makeup artists' work.
What??? Misses the mark. A great idea bogged down by a bad film. This had so much potential, but the execution was just sad and borderline pathetic. If it hadn't been for the the enjoyable death of the attorney, I'd have given this just one star. The "ghosts" were fun to watch, as well as well thought out. Too bad they were not better developed as true "characters" in the film. The "real" characters were shallow and uninteresting. The only one we cared about (the psychic) was underutilized. Overall, a waste of time.
Falls Short Of Being A Great Horror Movie After watching this movie, I thought that it was your normal Horror movie. There was nothing that separated this movie from others in the genre and didn't have anything it that made it unique.
The storyline was decent, more of a fantasy type because nothing like this would really happen in real life, but overall I thought the storyline was decent nothing better.
The way the ghosts looked were actually pretty cool. They did a good job with the way they looked and acted. The acting of the main actors was alright at times, and other times it sucked. This is supposed to be a straight horror movie, but then you find some cheesy comedy here and there which kind of kills the vibe because in the situation these people are in, theres no way they would be joking around the way they did at times.
There was a small climax in the movie, but after its all said and done, it doesn't really leave you feeling like "wow, that was intense". Overall I'll say this, if your looking for a decent horror with some gore here and there, check this out but I do not think its worth a buy.
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