10/14-13 Ghosts (2001)

I was planning what I would watch tonight when I noticed it was the 13th, so I of course think Friday the 13th, even though it's not Friday.  But then I remembered that I was really going to be watching on the 14th, because after midnight and such.  So I put the decision off for later.

Some time passed and I casually noticed the date again because I apparently forgot about the prior ordeal.  Upon seeing the 13th, I thought, "I know! I'll watch 13 Ghosts!" I immediately remembered the previous 13 debacle, but said fuck it and picked 13 Ghosts anyway.

This film opens with a psychic Matthew Lillard helping a rich eccentric, F. Murray Abraham (what's he doing in this garbage) capture a ghost with a big glass cube and a literal truckload of blood.  This is the twelfth and final ghost that Lillard has been contracted to contain, but they are briefly sidetracked by ghost-rights advocates upset at F. Murray enslaving the ghosts, they even have spells and silver flares!  This brief moment is important to establish the world this movie takes place in, one where mystical stuff happens, but probably most people don't know about it.  They manage to secure the ghost after a bunch of ghost-fodder rent-a-cops a murdered by said spirit in a number of entertaining ways, including being doubled over and sucked in between two junkyard cars.  In the scuffle, F. Murray dies leaving Matthew Lillard without pay.

We cut to Tony Shalhoub (of all people [by the way, I watched Galaxy Quest, which T-Shal is also in, recently and it's really great.  It's not scary, but it's still good.]) raising his family after his wife died in a fire, when a lawyer arrives at their apartment to share the news that his reclusive uncle Cyrus (F. Murray) has died and left Tony as the sole benefactor.  The main part of this inheritance is the custom built house which was Cyrus' life's work.

Don't worry, they make a "don't throw stones" joke.

So they all go to check out the house, and when they insert the key, some mechanism in the house activates opening the door for the family, but also clearly doing something nefarious.  Mattew Lillard appears feigning to be the power guy needing to check on something because there's a bunch of people without power.  We know this is bullshit, but the people go with it and let him in.  The lawyer and Tony go to sign some paperwork and Matthew heads to the basement in search of the money he is owed.  He unfortunately discovers that all twelve of the ghost containers are located in the basement of the house.

He finds the two men signing the documents in the library and warns T-Shal to get his family out of this house because of the ghosts.  Tony and Lillard argue a bit about the existence of ghosts, but when Lillard convinces him, they realize that the lawyer is missing.  We see the lawyer head to the basement where he finds a control room of sorts and a bag full of cash.  Upon taking the bag, he unknowingly activates something in the mechanisms of the house.  Walls begin moving, the exits to the outside shut, and at least one of the ghosts is released.  The lawyer sees the escaped ghost and is murdered by a door trying to flee.

Actual line from later in the movie-"Did the lawyer split?"

Anyway, the kids go missing in the house, ghosts continue to be released, and one of the ghost-lovers from the opening scene appears in the house to help the family survive.  She explains that the house is actually a giant machine designed by some ancient dude while he was possessed. "It's a machine designed by the devil himself and powered by the dead."  The house apparently needs twelve specific archetypes of ghosts, like the jackal (a crazy ghost), the juggernaut (a massive ghost), or the withered lover (who, in a fun twist, is T-Shal's dead wife), to power it and open the "Ocularis Infernum," or Eye of Hell.

The final act is pretty fun with a few twists and turns, one of which is pretty predictable due to casting and a "seeming" throwaway line.  But in the end, what this movie suffers from is the lack of any real fear.  Sure some of the ghosts are spooky looking, but they aren't particularly effective killers, at least in what we see.  In addition, there's no real question of who will live and who will die; it's very predictable in that sense.  By that token, you have a lot of hope for the characters you expect to live, and too much hope kills fear.  Movies like Funny Games or Eden Lake take away all your hope for the characters, and just when you think there's a chance for them, when a little hope eeks its way inside you, they take it all away.  You lose all hope and are left with the sense of dread.  In other words, pure horror.

But this movie doesn't have any of that.  13 Ghosts gets its scares through forced jump scares, relying on abrupt, screeching sound effects and split-second shots of gore.  There's also a bit a gore in how the ghosts are presented, but in the end, just doesn't read as that scary.

Rating on the Spook-o-meter: 3 out of 10 boos