A loving family man, Arthur (Tony Shalhoub) has lost his wife and home to a fire. We learn of his back-story in a remarkably cheesy though cinematically satisfying slow 360º pan that needs to be seen to be believed. His children, Kathy (a not scantily clad Shannon Elizabeth) and Bobby (Alec Roberts, easily the most irritating kid in a horror movie since Bob from House by the Cemetery), aren't really around for much longer than a moment of peril each before vanishing, and evil lawyer Ben Moss (JR Bourne), so pivotal in William Castle's 13 Ghosts, is now basically in town for a cup of coffee.
Down on their luck, Arthur's family is given a windfall when eccentric Uncle Cyrus (F. Murray Abraham) is killed while catching ghosts with hyperactive psychic Rafkin (Matthew Lillard). The motherless clan is bequeathed Cyrus' glass house, which appears to be a re-imagining of Clive Barker's puzzle-box from Hellraiser in both form (infernal clockwork) and function (that opens a gate to hell). On their first night in the new house (with Ben, Rafkin, sassy nanny Maggie (Rah Digga), and spiritual Greenpeace activist Kalina (Embeth Davidtz) in tow), the doors predictably seal and the ghosts that Cyrus had collected for his nefarious purposes get loose.
Despite decent gore (that unfortunately acquires a demureness for the film's final hour--the bane of modern slasher flicks) and a few genuinely funny moments from Shalhoub and Lillard, Thir13en Ghosts is a decibel-shattering spectacle that's more empty circus than bread. ILM wizard Steve Beck's remake of Castle's schlock classic does do two things right: it casts Shalhoub as a poor schlep of a widower math teacher, and it figures out how to use Matthew Lillard in a film. As well, the underused set design is truly a marvel and some of the make-up for the titular ghosts is effective (my favourite is a mother/son pair straight out of Springer). The film's main problem, above its convenient plotting and hollow histrionics, is that only a couple of the ghosts are actually aggressive, the best being a horribly maimed bombshell (Shawna Loyer) who's involved in the best bathtub haunting sequence since The Shining. If only three of your thirteen ghouls actually does something intimidating, that leaves ten just sitting around like bored sideshow geeks between paying customers. Mostly, I'm just disappointed to not have seen the little kid with an arrow through his head go to town on Lillard using his tiny hatchet.
With a surplus of warmth and nice timing, rapper Rah Digga (in her film debut) manages to keep her dignity intact in a comic relief role, and Lillard is surprisingly restrained (meaning, for Lillard, that we don't see his tongue), delivering his dialogue with heretofore unknown verve and wit. The best line of the movie, however, is a deadpan reading of "goats" dropped dryly by Shalhoub at a pivotal moment. Probably worth a matinee for aficionados of low-reaching camp or those inclined to chart the "so it's come to this" moments of Oscar-winners (Abraham), potential Oscar-winners (Shalhoub), and bimbo ingénues who seemed to have a future, once (Elizabeth, Davidtz), Thir13en Ghosts is better than the average dead teenager movie for its relative inventiveness. But in the end, it's too infatuated with its strobe flashes and confused editing to present anything resembling a good old-fashioned titillating creep out.-Walter Chaw
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The Joel Silver/Robert Zemeckis production company Dark Castle's second William Castle remake arrives on DVD as loaded as House on Haunted Hill did. In their own way, these films deserve the lavish supplemental treatment they've been getting: they're so F/X-heavy as to be ripe for deconstruction. In addition to a key cast and crew listing and a brief bio for William Castle, extras on the Thir13en Ghosts disc include an interesting nineteen-minute documentary, "Thir13en Ghosts Revealed," in which we see the rarely-shown step in the make-up process of removing the prosthetic appliances at the end of the day. Abraham is interviewed here with his throat made to look slashed, and one realizes he'll always be a Salieri; the Oscar-winning actor also narrates, in his best Rod Serling voice, ambitious, interactive "Ghost Files," wherein clicking on a memento brings up a backstory featurette for one of the thirteen ghosts created especially for this DVD. Some of these shorts are downright disturbing, which is more than one can say for a second of Thir13en Ghosts.
The video for a lesser Tricky ditty, "Excess" (under "Club Reel"), plus the film's theatrical trailer round out the special features section. The audio-video presentation of Thir13en Ghosts--an almost-peerless 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer with bombastic Dolby Digital 5.1 sound (there's just no end to the rumbling and the swirling voices)--is complemented by semi-screen-specific audio commentary from production designer Sean Hargreaves, make-up supervisor Howard Berger (the "B" in KNB), and Steve Beck, each of whom is given the opportunity to elaborate what was touched upon in the making-of. It's worth a listen if you subscribe to such magazines as Cinefex, though to hear a director describe his own movie as a "Halloween party on a roller coaster" made me squirm.-Bill Chambers
© Film Freak Central; filmfreakcentral.net. This review may not be reprinted, in whole or in part, without the express consent of its author.
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