Home » Film & TV » Science Fiction Films » THIRTEEN GHOSTS Is Excellent Entertainment

THIRTEEN GHOSTS Is Excellent Entertainment

© Elizabeth Burton

Ghost stories - good ones - are scarce on the ground these days, The Sixth Sense notwithstanding. With the wonders of compuer F/X at their fingertips, too many writers and directors seem to forget they're supposed to be doing ghost stories.

Thirteen Ghosts is one such CGI extravaganze, but it has a difference - it doesn't pretend to be something it isn't. A remake of a 1960 film by William Castle with the same name, it zips along with the speed of mania, tossing characters hither and yon and never really taking itself too seriously.

Tony Shaloub is Arthur Kriticos, an average guy who lost nearly everything he cared about, including his will to live, when his wife died in a mysterious house fire. He lives elbow-to-elbow in a shabby apartment with his gorgeous daughter Kathy(Shannon Elizabeth), his eight-year-old death-obsessed son Bobby (Alec Roberts) and a live-in, utterly unflappable babysitter/housekeeper, Maggie (Rah Digga).

Enter a lawyer in polished Brooks Brothers with the news Art's crazy ghost-hunting Uncle Cyrus (F. Murray Abraham, at his scenery-chewing best) has joined the spectral ranks he once pursued, leaving his nephew all his goods and chattels. This includes a huge mansion, which immediately goes on the rest of the family's must-have list.

Considering what he knows about his late uncle's avocation, Art is understandably leery of this particular gift horse, especially when he sees the size of the place, but the lawyer assures him there's plenty of money for upkeep so he surrenders to his children's delight. And, for about ten minutes after they begin exploring the amazing glass-walled construct that is Uncle Cyrus's abode, the downward spiral that is Art's life seems to have begun winding upward.

Of course, as every good horror film fan knows, all Hell is about to break loose - in this case, literally. For Uncle Cyrus has built not a house but a great machine, a diabolical construct that at the proper time and with the proper fuel will open the gates to the devil's domain. The fuel is in the basement, locked in glass cages sealed with arcane runes and visible only with special glasses - twelve ghostly captives representing the signs in the evil Black Zodiac.

And Art Kritikos is the last ingredient Cyrus needs to set his machine in motion.

What sets Thirteen Ghosts a step above the schlock stream is that scripters Neal Stevens, who adapted Robb White's original 1960 story, and Richard D'Ovidio held on to the basics of plot. The sequence of events follows the classic route of presenting a character with a conflict only he can resolve and then having him resolve it. Their focus, and that of helmsman Steve Beck, is on Art's transformation as he realizes what's going on and that he's the only one who can fix it, not seeing how much violence and gore they can work into an hour and a half.