13 Ghosts: Movie & DVD Review (2001)

(Originally published 2001)

The horror movie "13 Ghosts" comes from Robert Zemeckis and Joel Silver's Dark Castle Entertainment, which bombed in 1999 with their critically condemned remake of William Castle's 1958 film, "The House on Haunted Hill."

Since this is Hollywood, where logic is as scarce as a real blond or a good script, it makes perfect sense that Zemeckis and Silver would ignore their prior mistakes and belly up to the cineplex to repeat them. Dipping back into Castle's bag, they found the director's 1960 camp horror film "13 Ghosts," hired Neal Marshall Stevens and Richard D'Ovidio to rewrite it, and asked commercial and music video director Steve Beck to direct it.

My condolences to those of you who've seen it.

From the start, "13 Ghosts" is an unrelenting wreck, a bombastic juggernaut that hammers away at the screen like a 2-year-old on a metal pot.

Its ongoing blast of strobe lights, rapid jump cuts and blaring noise are meant to generate energy and rouse the senses, but all they really create are headaches, eye strain and nausea. There were moments in this movie when I wanted to throw sedatives at the screen, anything to slow it down or to stop it from assailing the senses.

But there's no stopping it. Leaning hard on his music video background, Beck has delivered an empty film that can't sit still, a movie that so choppy and frenetic, it makes the crazed opening of "Moulin Rouge" seem subdued.

In the film, Arthur Kritocos (Tony Shalhoub), a widower with two kids (Shannon Elizabeth and Alec Roberts) and a streetwise nanny (Rah Digga), is on the financial skids. But when Arthur's wealthy, eccentric Uncle Cyrus (F. Murray Abraham) dies and leaves them a fantastic house made of glass, things start to look up.

Or at least they do until the family realizes the house is haunted with 12 ghosts looking to kick butt. Locked in glass containment cubes, the ghosts, which can only be seen through special glasses, have been entombed by Cyrus for a strange Satanic ritual that involves a spinning wheel called the Black Zodiac. When the Black Zodiac receives its 13th soul, its revolutions will be complete and the newly resurrected Cyrus will have the power to rule the world.

There isn't enough dry ice in the world to conceal the rot of stupidity hovering over "13 Ghosts." With Embeth Davidtz and Matthew Lillard both overacting to a lower power in supporting roles, there apparently also aren't enough acting coaches.

Grade: D-