DVD review by Stephanie Star Smith

June 10, 2002

William Castle would've loved DVDs.

For those who are unfamiliar with the name - and you must not be horror-film fans if not - Castle was a legendary film producer and promoter in the '50s and '60s. His were decidedly B films; though they generally had very intriguing concepts at their core, the production values and execution kept them from rising above the most basic level.

But something Castle's films had in spades were gimmicks. Castle was a master showman, and he found a hook to each film that he could exploit to get audiences into theaters. Some were inspired, such as wiring theater seats to deliver mild shocks at to the patrons at propitious points during The Tingler. Others were almost embarrassingly cheesy; Emergo, the gimmick for House on Haunted Hill, was an inflatable skeleton that flew down a wire from the projection booth at the proper moment. Rather than frightening the audience, Emergo became sideshow entertainment, with audience members competing to see who could pierce the plastic skin and make Emergo explode.

Even Dark Castle Entertainment, the production company behind Thir13en Ghosts, has a gimmick: It was founded by, among others, Castle's daughter for the express purpose of remaking many of her father's films. The first remake was of House on Haunted Hill, perhaps Castle's best-known film. Most of Castle's output was as much about man's inhumanity to man as it was about supernatural phenomena; unfortunately, this remake never decided whether it wanted to be about the supernatural or explore the darker aspects of human nature, and ended up being an uneven mish-mash of the two themes. Artistically a disappointment, the film was a modest box-office hit, giving the fledgling studio the foundation needed to proceed with its mission statement.

Which brings us to Thir13en Ghosts. The original 1960 production was as much about the paranormal as it was the everyday menace that comes from human sources. By not having to decide whether to hew to the original or make a flat-out horror film, Thir13en Ghosts already has a leg up on House on Haunted Hill. Add to that the fact that Dark Castle has a whole lot more money to work with, and that special effects have made exponential leaps forward in the ensuing four decades, and you've got all the elements for a winning remake.

And win is what Thir13en Ghosts does. The core story is the same as the original; a man in dire financial straits inherits a mansion from his uncle, whom he hasn't seen in years. The man and his family move into the house, only to discover that they aren't the only inhabitants of their new abode.

The Plot

From this point, you'll be reading spoilers about both the original film and the remake, so if you haven't see it and you don't want to know what happens and how it ends, then skip to the DVD features section and come back when you've seen the film. Either film.

Perhaps the most salient difference between the spirits in the 1960 original and the 2001 remake is that those who have crossed over in the remake are able to injure and even kill those still on this plane of existence, contrary to everything we've ever heard about ghosts. This becomes a very important fact later in the story, so it's established for us right up-front.

We open with psychic Dennis Rafkin (a surprisingly-effective Matthew Lilliard), helping Cyrus Kriticos (F. Murray Abraham) capture a particularly nasty spirit known as Breaker, who each refer to as the "12th ghost". A male and female pair of Wiccans try to convince Kriticos that what he's doing is wrong, and the warlock mentions that "it" won't work without "the 13th ghost", something that comes as quite a surprise to Dennis, who only signed on for 12. With paycheck hanging in the balance, and wearing a pair of funky-looking acrylic wrap-around glasses, Dennis points the way to this tortured soul, and Cyrus brings in a specially-built cube and starts playing a tape of some chanting in a language that sounds vaguely Latin. In the process of imprisoning this murderous ghost, a number of people, including Kriticos and the warlock, end up gruesomely dead.

The credits begin as we see happy scenes of a mother and her children and hear the voice of a man we learn is the husband and father of those on-screen. As the credits roll, keepsakes in the house come into view, and the voiceover becomes a soundtrack of fire and death. Gradually, the scene changes to shots of overdue bills, and our 360 tour ends with a shot of a photograph of the mother, burned and tattered at the edges, and then moves to Arthur Kriticos (Tony Shaloub), who we soon come to realize is the aforementioned husband and father. We meet Kathy (Shannon Elizabeth), the teenage daughter who has had to step into the role of caretaker; the babysitter, Maggie (Rah Digga), who seems to be a part of this story solely to add comic relief; and young Bobby (Alec Roberts), a boy with an unusual fascination with death. We establish they live in a small apartment in vastly reduced circumstances and undiscussed grief. At this point, enter Cyrus' lawyer, Benjamin Moss (JR Roberts), with news of the uncle's death and a video will leaving his house to his nephew.

The house turns out to be quite unusual in many ways, the first of which we're aware is on an architectural level. Made entirely of some sort of Plexiglas covered with Latin inscriptions, turning the key sets the house into some kind of animated life, as the family, the lawyer, and a power-company employee we recognize as the psychic from the first scene, enter.

Before long, we discover that Moss is there for his own purposes. As he dons a pair of the glasses we saw in the first scene and goes into the basement, we also discover that Cyrus didn't dissipate the spirits he collected, but for some reason stored them in the cubes in which they were captured. Moss, as one would expect of a lawyer, is in this for the money, but his greed sets in motion a Rube Goldberg contraption that releases the tortured souls and causes the house to undergo some automated renovation. The first ghost released is a beautiful young woman carrying a knife and covered with cuts, whom Moss taunted on the way to his ill-gotten gain. As she talks him and he backtracks in fear, Plexiglas walls shift and jigsaw-puzzle pieces of metal drop into place, gradually sealing the inhabitants in. Moss ultimately pays for his greed, suffering the gristly fate of literally being cut in half by a closing wall. A very cool effect, by the way.

As the house begins to close up, Dennis reveals his true identity to Arthur, and also inadvertently demonstrates his psychic gift. At Dennis' insistence, Arthur goes to gather his children and get out of the house, only to find kids and babysitter have wandered off from their waiting place, forcing Arthur and Dennis to search through the house to locate them, and leading Dennis to discover Cyrus' ectoplasmic zoo.

As more walls shift, puzzle pieces continue to close off the house and stairs appear where none existed before, Kathy, Bobby and Maggie explore the home, finding several pair of those special glasses in the process. After several near-encounters with ghosties, Bobby, separated from Maggie and Kathy and hearing voices calling to him, ventures into the basement, believing his caretakers are playing a game. Shadows flit by, frightening the boy but not deterring his advance. After seeing several of the vengeful ghosts, and narrowly avoiding death, Bobby encounters a gentle spirit who urges him to go back upstairs. It turns out this poor soul is his deceased mother, who was killed in the fire we heard in voiceover during the credits.

As Bobby escapes the basement, Arthur finds Kathy, and Maggie and Dennis arrive soon after, explaining Cyrus' menagerie and reiterating the need to leave the house NOW. Dennis also explains the Latin inscriptions, describing them as containment spells and expositioning that spirits must obey what such inscriptions tell them. A skeptical Arthur suggests splitting up once again to find Bobby, with Kathy accompanying him and Maggie going off with Dennis.

Arthur's skepticism soon ends, as Kathy is attacked by a ghost known as The Jackal. As he struggles to save her from what is to him unseen, a new player enters: Kalina, the surviving Wiccan from the first scene, armed with tools to fight off the vicious ghost. Kalina extracts Kathy and Arthur from their predicament, and the three set off to find Bobby, Dennis and Maggie. Dennis and Maggie, meanwhile, have discovered Moss' remains, and Dennis has also determined that some of the worst spirits have now been released. In an interesting telegraphing of the story, Dennis sees flashes of how he will ultimately meet his demise in this haunted mansion, and he and Maggie beat a hasty retreat from a small boy ghost known as the First-Born Son, running them smack into our other trio. In the confusion of escaping from the vengeful spirits, Kathy is separated from the group, and Dennis, Maggie, Arthur and Kalina are forced to flee to the safest spot in the house, Cyrus' library.

It is here that Kalina reveals the details of Cyrus' - and the movie's - core plot. It seems there was once a monk possessed by demons who wrote a book describing how to construct the Eye of Hell, a machine that would allow one to see into the future. Cyrus collected specific spirits - illustrations and names provided by the book - in order to fuel the machine, which Moss set into motion. Establishing that her way in is no longer an option for a way out, Kalina explains how the souls will complete the machine's objective, and Dennis reveals his part in the plot, including the revelation that one of the trapped souls, the poetically-named Withered Lover, is Arthur's wife, Jean. Kalina tells Arthur that there is a way to stop the machine: the 13th ghost, created from a living being, sacrificing life in an act of pure, unselfish love.

Dennis and Arthur go to try and find Kathy and Bobby, carrying a piece of one of the library walls, brandishing the containment spell like a shield. Kalina and Maggie, meanwhile, head to the basement to set explosives around the Rube Goldberg device, in case they are unable to stop the creation of the Eye of Hell.

In yet another twist of plot, Kalina smacks Maggie upside the head with the monk's book, and Cyrus, slit throat and all, appears on the scene. It turns out Kalina and Cyrus are in cahoots, and the warlock didn't die by Breaker's hand. They exposition that the 13th ghost, rather than the fail-safe Kalina claimed, is the catalyst, the essential element to completing the Eye of Hell. After Kalina, at Cyrus' behest, ensures Arthur will sacrifice himself by placing his children in danger, Cyrus no longer has need of her, and so gives her over to the murderous souls in the house to be slaughtered.

Dennis protects Arthur by sacrificing himself, and Arthur follows the spirits as they are drawn by the Latin chanting to the center of the house to complete the Eye of Hell. He sees his children trapped in the center of revolving metal circles, and the spirits lining up around the outside, completing the Eye. Arthur also discovers, as does the audience, that Cyrus is not really dead; furthermore, Cyrus set up Arthur to become the 13th ghost after Jean died.

But before Cyrus can force Arthur into the sacrifice, Maggie comes to the rescue. She uses the controls on the Eye of Hell as a sort of rap turntable, causing the machine to break into pieces and releasing the ghosts from entrapment on this plane. Having the opportunity to avenge themselves against their captor, they take Cyrus and leave, giving Arthur the opportunity to save his children without any of them dying. The fractured family is thus made whole again, and with Dennis' spirit looking on approvingly, they are able to say a final good-bye to Jean, now restored to resplendent beauty, before she, too, goes on to her eternal rest. The movie ends with Maggie bitching comically about not being paid enough for the job she's been forced into this night.

Movie Review

Thir13en Ghosts, as was House on Haunted Hill before it, a departure from the original, but in this case, the changes added to the movie immensely. Making the ghosts a main part of the plot instead of so much set decoration, made the spirits themselves more interesting. It was also an intriguing choice to make the uncle, a benign figure in the original, into the villain of the piece. Greed is still the basis of the events set in motion, both the lawyer wanting the money - a holdover from the original - and in Cyrus wanting the power to control the past and future.

Probably the best thing about this version of Thir13en Ghosts, however, is the ghosts themselves. Each has a back-story, and the make-up F/X on this movie are outstanding. The house is also a masterpiece of set design and computer F/X, instead of a rather staid Victorian-style mansion as in the original.

All in all, Thir13en Ghosts is a lot of fun, whether you've seen the original or not. It delivers thrills, chills and a few intentional laughs, as well as a touching example of the triumph of love over evil.

DVD Review

As I mentioned when I started this review, William Castle would've loved DVDs, because DVDs have a hook, a gimmick with which to sell a film, namely the extra features you find on even the most minimalist releases. Add to those the fact that most DVDs provide pristine picture and sound, and you've got a selling point for any halfway-decent film.

The picture quality on this DVD was excellent. The details were crisp, and I detected no pixilating during the jump-cuts that were the standard mode of movement for the ghosts. The sound, while clear, seemed a bit flat; there was none of the fullness one gets from a high-quality digital soundtrack. Having a surround set-up might help this some; however, I've watched other DVDs and gotten a much better sound quality, even without the surround set-up.

The featurettes for Thir13en Ghosts focus mostly on the special effects, as one would imagine. There's a dry dissertation on how the computer graphics were done, detailing in particular how the house was created digitally and also the animation of the Rube Goldbergian Eye of Hell. These tend to be technologically-oriented discussions, and while I found them interesting and was glad they were included, they weren't rollicking fun-rides by any stretch of the imagination.

The major attractions among the featurettes focus on the ghosts. There's an extended piece on how the make-up effects for the ghosts were created, and this proves to be the second-most interesting bit. Watching the actors mill around in full make-up, and witnessing what it takes to put one of them, Breaker, into full make-up and get him out, was fascinating. As was the commentary from the make-up designer and head make-up artist; the creation process, and how they worked in tandem with the director, added a great deal to the enjoyment of both he film and the DVD.

But the best behind-the-scenes bit was the inclusion of the back-story for each ghost. Each of the tortured souls Cyrus Kriticos collects is given a metaphorical name, and we are briefly introduced to and see illustrations of each when Kalina expositions the Eye of Hell during the film. Mention is also made during the make-up F/X segment that the director dreamed up backgrounds for each ghost to enhance the creation of the make-up. But to get to see and hear the back-stories is absolutely captivating.

Cyrus had to get 12 specific spirits, according to the plot, in order to properly energize the Eye of Hell: The First-Born Son, The Torso, The Bound Woman, The Withered Lover, The Torn Prince, The Angry Princess, The Pilgrimess, The Great Child, The Dire Mother, The Hammer, The Jackal and The Juggernaut. How each spirit came to be, and what they were in life, is the focus of this extra feature. And the tour of their "pathetic lives" is given in voiceover by Cyrus Kriticos (although it's quite obvious that F. Murray Abraham did not lend his voice to the proceedings). The viewer is presented with a trophy case filled with artifacts that, when selected, bring up the illustration and name from the movie, and starts Cyrus on his tour of the events leading to each person's demise, which is, of course, described in detail. The last few shots in each vignette are of the actual ghost from the film, helping complete the connection. One also learns a bit about how each fits the descriptive given in the film.

There's also the obligatory director's commentary, but quite frankly, I skipped that as being wholly uninteresting to me.

Thir13en Ghosts is a fun movie to watch, and a fun DVD to explore, with the kind of behind-the-scenes information that enhances the viewing experience. (Stephanie Star Smith/BOP)