Thirteen Ghosts (2001)
Like a lot of people I actually seen the remake version first. It was years later, I got to see the original version. The movie is about a family that becomes trapped inside an unusual house filled with ghosts. It already sounds scary right? It does have some notable actors I gotta mention for reference purposes. Tony Shalhoub whose widely known for the show Monk plays Arthur.
Matthew Lillard whose in a lot of Scooby-Doo stuff as well as Stu in the original Scream. Shannon Elizabeth a few years after Jack Frost, she balanced back from that good for her. Embeth Davidtz played Sheila in Army of Darkness as well as Miss Jennifer Honey in Matilda (1996) film. Of course, I gotta mention F. Murray Abraham whose in Scarface (1983) film as well as Last Action Hero to name a few.
The family gets told Arthur's uncle died. He was left this unusual glass house. Honestly, still one of the most interesting buildings I ever seen within a horror movie. The original version had it's own line up of the ghosts. William Castle went the extra distance in move theaters to further get people into his movies. A major thing the remake version doesn't have.
I will say the ghosts from both concept as well as actually seeing them is done better in the remake version. They tried an interesting concept involving 3D glasses but it didn't quite work well. I can still respect their towards though. Each ghosts featured in this movie had a tragic past. Very few of them were serial killers like Horace "Breaker" Mahoney aka The Juggernaut.
I should also point out Ken Kirzinger was Station Stunt Performer for the film. Kirzinger later started as Jason in Freddy vs. Jason yeah isn't that awesome? I do need to mention something a little unexpected too. It's about Dana Newman aka The Angry Princess. Her actress in the film, Shawna Loyer actually was painted nude for the film.
Which I also connected a similar situation in The Return of the Living Dead with the character Trash. Whose actually played by a real stripper. She later went on to do more films following that. Moving on before my wife kills me here lol. It turns out this house was designed for a few purposes. One of it's concepts was trapped the ghosts inside but it will alter it's shape at times.
So it's kinda like a few Hellraiser movies with a recreation of the puzzle box in a weird sense. We haven't even gotten to the big twists yet. You do feel sorry for the family as the movie goes on. I ended up loving Dennis Rafkin whose a psychic that gave his life up to save Arthur from two ghosts. I really loved the concept of these googles that allows people to see ghosts.
Let's be honest, the one ghost that freaks everyone including myself out is Ryan Kuhn aka The Jackal. OMG, this has to be one of the scariest ghosts I ever seen in a horror movie. He has a broken cage over his head with long finger nail claws. You can tell this ghost was an insane patient in a mental institute. Not long before the events of the movie, Arthur's wife died.
Sadly for him, she is one of the ghosts presented in this house. They also accompanied by a baby sitter, who I kinda like. Now it's time to spoil the big stuff. If you haven't seen the movie you may wanna stop reading then go somewhere else. Otherwise, you can't blame me for spoiling the movie here. It turns out Arthur's uncle Cyrus faked his death to tricked the family into moving to that house on purpose.
He was assisted by a ghost expert whose clearly in love with him. She ends up getting a brutal death trap since Cyrus was so cold hearted as a person. He was going to force his nephew Arthur into sacrificing himself. By literately jumping into another death trap in an attempt to save his children. Thankfully, Cyrus forgot about the baby sitter.
Cyrus ends up getting sliced up by that trap. Arthur saved his children, everyone including the ghosts leaves. Of course, there's some deaths within the house like a man was messing around. Out of no where he gets directly cut in half by glass walls. This movie has some amazing special effects as well. I felt audio wise it was done just right.
Thirteen Ghosts is a good movie that often gets forgotten among horror movie remakes. Which is a real shame because it's actually a decent one. I would even say it's way better than House on Haunted Hill & The Haunting remakes respectively. Not only that, the back stories for each ghost was very well written I say.
I would say this was among the first scary ghost movies I liked. Back then, ghosts wasn't something I was crazy about. My wife eventually changed that in more recent years. I felt everyone involved should give them a round of applause for their hard work. I can't even criticize this movie because even the little issues aren't notable enough to ruin any aspects of the film itself.
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