If I can think of nothing else to say about 13 Ghosts, at least it isn’t suffering from too many ideas. In fact, fuck me with a claw hammer if you an find one. This is crappy poo, another hot load force fed straight into our mouths from the ass of Hollywood. It reminds ticketbuyers that if the law let Hollywood producers shoot us on the street and take our wallets, you bet your ass they would all have pistols. This is moviemaking as commodity: loveless, efficient mass-production of something they think we’re stupid enough to buy. And we probably are. But fuck them for respecting us so little, or for not even considering us. Fuck them for not caring one bit about even making it worth the trip.
You’ll hear “classic” thrown about by the grassfuckers when they refer to the original 13 Ghosts. But remember, Hollywood buys the word “classic” by the barrel and affixes it to anything old that they want to sell. Don’t be fooled: the original was a shitty B-movie that the producers hope we’ll have forgotten so they can deem it a masterpiece. The remake is even shittier.
The sliver of plot has a family that just lost its mother and all its money inherit a huge glass house from their creepy uncle. Unbeknownst to them, the house contains twelve ghosts. It is, in the hyperbolic, shitty way the script has “a machine built by the devil and powered by the dead.” A thirteenth ghost is needed in order to fully-power the machine and open the “eye of hell,” only the movie uses the improper Latin term for it, because that’s the kind of shit that impresses those dumbfucks in Hollywood. So, the screechy family and their nanny goes to the glass house in the woods, get trapped in it, wander up and down the same fucking halls for 60 minutes looking first for the son, then the daughter, and eventually escape unharmed, except for the unnecessary character actors. There are a bunch of ghosts, each supposedly with a different personality, but fuck if the audience could tell. This movie has the resources to build a huge, expensive-looking house, but not to flesh out any people.
13 Ghosts is like a girl all dolled-up and looking for love at Bennigan’s: the whole story is on the surface, no depth and no character, nothing to remember. It’s too fucking simple and stupid to give us any deep scares. Instead, 13 Ghosts uses jump-editing, lots of flashing lights and blood to scare us. That shit’s cheap and easy, a lazy man’s way to yank a fright out of you when the story can’t. And there’s nobody lazier than Hollywood. Hell, any movie where the scariness is entirely up to the editor is bound to be a piece of shit. I mean, put enough jump cuts, strobe lights and shit popping out from around corners into Glitter and it would be scarier than this. Um, actually, it already is.
All of these actors are given the exact same direction for every scene: “Okay, now you’re really scared.” They overact, screaming in panic as soon as they’re in the house and continuing for sixty minutes. Thereis never get any sense of increasing dread. Matthew Lillard was already one of the most annoying actors in the world. He’s a guy Hollywood has somehow been convinced the kids think is cool, but it’s pretty fucking clear he’s about as big a shitty goober as there is. Spit bubbles, whining and acting panicked all the fucking time are not cool, funny or interesting to watch. 13 Ghosts casts Shannon Elizabeth as the wholesome daughter. What the fuck? This is the same shitty actress that couldn’t act her way out of Tomcats and here they give her a role where she doesn’t even show her tits? Jesus. I’ll give Hollywood five bucks for every person they find who says “Oh, Shannon Elizabeth is in it? It must be pretty good.” If they will give me five bucks for every teenaged boy I can find who says “she doesn’t take her top off? Fuck that.” If the part calls for someone who doesn’t show her tits, why not get a real actress? One who won’t walk around with that far-away vacant stare on her face all the time? F. Murray Abraham and Tony Shalhoub are the only real actors here, and they’re both slumming it for the paycheck. Both of them spend the movie trying to see if they can top Lillard’s overacting, and by the end they have stretch marks.
I can’t forget to mention Rah Digga’s sassy black nanny character. You see, when the movie starts, the family is broke, way behind in bills and living in a slum. But, they can afford a sassy black nanny because, otherwise, who would say all that sassy black jive that the white screenwriters thought up? It takes a certain kind of soulless nitwit to dig up the bones of such a hoary, offensive stereotype, but these writers didn’t even think twice. “Don’t go there!” “Uh-uh, I ain’t going down there, no way!” Fuck the writers.
The plot drags itself along like a man who just had his legs bitten off by sharks. It flops, stumbles and leaves a trail of blood to the spot where it finally dies and all I can think is, why didn’t someone put it out of its misery quicker? It makes no sense and barely tries. It’s so contrived and ridiculous, and starts at such a screechy pitch that it has nowhere to go. By the end, I was certainly glad it was over, but only because I was tired of the screeching. Note to producers: in a movie, the problem should grow in complexity before being resolved, not just coast along until it is magically and absurdly solved by the sassy black nanny “scratching” on a sound mixing board in the basement. I swear to God this movie is that lame.
One Finger for this tedious crapfest.