Thirteen
Ghosts appeared as if it would be a high tech scare fest, filled
with creepy visuals, a good plotline, and lots of gore. My
expectations could not have been more wrong.
The
movie chronicles the story of a small family who falls apart
after the mother dies in a fire. Along with their mother, all of
the family's possessions go up into flames, leaving them to be a
struggling family with strong ties to one another.
Another
storyline opens up, when a psychic ghost hunter (Matthew
Lillard, in one of his most poorly acted roles ever) is hired to
capture ghosts for an evil man. Of course, you can tell he
is evil because his name is Cyrus. Cyrus collects ghosts for a
purpose that is unforeseen at the beginning of the movie.
Within
the first sequence, Cyrus dies in a ghost hunting accident. And
wouldn't you know it? He leaves his whole fortune, complete with
his creepy ghost collection house to his last remaining family
members. You guessed it, the family I referred to earlier are
the lucky recipients of the house.
From
here on, excitement and terror ensue. Oh wait, no they don't.
Absolutely no excitement or terror ever even peeks it's head
onto the screen. What does peek it's head onto the screen are
bad one-liners from the token black girl (of course there's the
standard "DAMN! I ain't chillin wit y'all whiteys no
mo'"), horrible acting from everyone on screen, and clichéd
cheesiness pulled right out of every bad horror movie.
What
seems like too soon, the movie shifts from a what could've been
a scary horror film into a "Let's kill those ghost
bastards! Who's with me?!" film.
And
to top it off, only 3 people die! ONLY 3!!! Yes, in the opening
sequence more people are killed, but they are not characters of
any significance, they are just the "shocking opening
sequence day players." And even if lots of the main
characters did die, it wouldn't have mattered, because every one
of them pissed you off anyway. They were all annoying, and most
of the time I was either praying for one of them to die horribly
or for Shannon Elizabeth to take her clothes off. Neither of
which happened.
The
highest point during the movie was when I farted really loud and
everyone around me started laughing. Naturally, I raised
my arm to let everyone know it was me.
Just
for the record, now that I'm pissed at the movies of this year,
here's what else sucked. Scary
Movie 2, American Pie 2, Pearl
Harbor, Evolution (I wanted to
like it, but I didn't laugh at all. I'm sorry Orlando Jones, I
still have faith in you), Planet of
the Apes (great idea, horrid, horrid execution) and
the king of suckers..... Tomcats.
-
2 points go to the creativity in one of the deaths
and 1 point goes to the directors for not putting Alec Baldwin
or Josh Hartnett in it.
- 3 more points go to the visuals.
- But 4 are now taken away because of Matthew Lillard's acting.
