Thirteen Ghosts

By Johnny Bray

Let's say you had a relative that you'd only seen a couple of times as a child. One day you find out that he's died, and left everything he owned to you. Would that not make you a little suspicious?

I asked myself that question at the beginning of Thirteen Ghosts, and did my best not to let it ruin the movie for me. You have to take into account that this is a cheap horror movie, and things don't necessarily have to make sense.

The movie begins in a junkyard, where a group of people are, for some reason, trying to capture a ghost. They're led by Cyrus (F. Murray Abraham), who has the equipment, and who uses Dennis (Matthew Lillard) to locate them for him.

Cut to some time later, and we see Arthur (Tony Shalhoub) and his family, who are having some financial difficulties. A man comes to the house and informs Arthur that his uncle has died, and he is to be the sole benefactor. Without question, he takes his family out to the house he's just inherited to check it out.

It's a huge place, made mostly of what appears to be glass. The entire family is thrilled to have access to such a place, but of course they don't know there are a few extra tenants.

Indeed, there are 12 ghosts kept captive in the basement, and they aren't too happy to be there. So naturally, once they're set free, they come after the family, wanting to kill them all.

The movie's main problem is that it isn't very scary. The ghosts look like nothing more than massive makeup jobs, and as a result are not very intimidating. Some of the violence is indeed very violent, but you can't make a truly scary movie on violence alone. It also doesn't help that you have two completely unconvincing actors in Matthew Lillard and Shannon Elizabeth. And of course, it's a Hollywood movie, so there has to be an annoying little brat that you want to backhand every time he opens his mouth.

Here's a bit of commentary that doesn't have much to do with this review: Why is it okay for a black person to say: "I'm stuck in a room with a bunch of crazy white people,"? If a white person had talked about being in a room with a bunch of crazy black people, it would have been considered extremely racist and unacceptable.

Just something to think about...

Anyway, the movie manages to be a little bit creepy for a few seconds, but nothing more than that. There are some predictable twists, an unsatisfying climax, and a really cool house.

The disc, however, is quite outstanding. Presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen (16x9 TV compatible) and 5.1 Dolby Digital, this is how all DVDs should be done. Absolutely top-notch picture and a near-flawless audio track make this a disc to be reckoned with. Too bad the movie isn't worth it!

The DVD also happens to feature some nifty extras. First up is an audio commentary by director Steve Beck, production designer Sean Hargreaves, and makeup effects supervisor Howard Berger. It's more of a technical commentary with some interesting things to say, but is not overly entertaining. Next is the documentary "Thirteen Ghosts Revealed." It's a nifty doc that talks about the makeup, the CGI, and the house itself. Considering the movie had a rather small budget (by today's standards, anyway), it's quite fascinating to see what they managed to do.

The most unique extra on the disc is definitely the "Ghost Files." It has about a minute's worth of background on each of the twelve ghosts, just so you know more about them. It's a fun extra, and it's interesting to see what they came up with for these wacky paranormal phenomena. There's also a "Tricky Excess Club Reel" and the trailer.

Thirteen Ghosts, from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
91 minutes, anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) 16X9 enhanced, 5.1 Dolby Digital
Starring Tony Shalhoub, Embeth Davidtz, Matthew Lillard, Shannon Elizabeth, Rah Digga and F. Murray Abraham
Produced by Gilbert Adler, Joel Silver, Robert Zemeckis
Screenplay by Neal Marshall Stevens and Richard D'Ovidio
Directed by Steve Beck

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