Spectacularly stupid.
Thirteen Ghosts (2001)
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Reviews Counted:88
Fresh:11
Rotten:77
Average Rating:3.4/10
Consensus: The production design is first rate, but 13 Ghosts is distinctly lacking in scares.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for horror violence/gore, nudity and some language
Runtime: 1 hr 31 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Theatrical Release:Oct 26, 2001 Wide
Box Office: $41,601,840
Synopsis: 13 GHOSTS, Steve Beck's feature debut, is the second recent remake (following THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL) of a film by 1950s and '60s camp horror king, William Castle. Arthur Kriticos (Tony... 13 GHOSTS, Steve Beck's feature debut, is the second recent remake (following THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL) of a film by 1950s and '60s camp horror king, William Castle. Arthur Kriticos (Tony Shalhoub) is a financially strapped widower struggling to raise two children, Kathy (Shannon Elizabeth) and Bobby (Alec Roberts), after losing his wife in a house fire. A stroke of apparent luck arrives when Arthur learns he has inherited a mansion from his mysterious Uncle Cyrus (F. Murray Abraham). Ecstatic, Arthur whisks the kids and nanny, Maggie (Rah Digga), off to their new home, a bizarre glass and steel structure with strange Latin inscriptions carved on the walls. The family is thrilled, until a psychic and former employee of Cyrus's, Rafkin (Matthew Lillard), reveals that Arthur's departed uncle was a power hungry ghost collector who captured twelve spirits in the house. Arthur is skeptical. But when his children disappear, and Rafkin gives him a pair of special glasses that allow him to view the house's gruesome inhabitants, he believes. In Beck's special effects-laden gore-fest, the two men race against time to find the children as the house's strange internal mechanism begins sealing off the exits and freeing the angry ghosts. [More]
Starring: F. Murray Abraham, Tony Shalhoub, Shannon Elizabeth, Kathryn Anderson
Starring: F. Murray Abraham, Tony Shalhoub, Shannon Elizabeth, Kathryn Anderson, J.R. Bourne, Embeth Davidtz, Matthew Lillard, Rah Digga, Alec Roberts
Director: Steve Beck
Director: Steve Beck
Screenwriter: Neal Marshall, Steve Beck
Producer: Joel Silver, Dan Cracchiolo, Gilbert Adler, Robert Zemeckis
Composer: John Frizzell
Studio: Warner Bros.
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Reviews for Thirteen Ghosts
A reasonably fun way to blow off 90 minutes of your unhaunted, monster-free life.
All in all, the technical credits outshine the characters, which is never a good idea.
While 13 Ghosts, a remake of Mr. Castle's 1960 haunted-house schlocker, isn't a bad movie per se, its austerity and predictability show what a cheesy genius the man was.
The majority of the audience, for better or worse, was screaming, shaking, yelping, booing, hissing, and yelling throughout the movie.
Full of logic holes, cheap narrative shortcuts and mood-wrecking attempts at ethnic humor.
Rah Digga, playing a soul sister nanny/DJ, scratches it up and manages to bring the house down.
Thirteen Ghosts makes no sense, but it startles you every once in a while and, up until the corny finale, it's never dull.
Despite some cool visuals, 13 Ghosts ranks as one of the dumbest scare flicks ever made.
First-time director Steve Beck hurls a dozen ghosts and probably a million dollars' worth of prosthetic makeup at us for a full 90 minutes, but it's old hat and not a bit scary.
After a whiz-bang, blood-spattered opening set piece that seems to suggest that it will be a specter-fueled variation on Twister, the film settles into something much more mundane and muddled.
This bloody stab at William Castle's 1960 gimmick flick substitutes chaos for chills, much like the company's 1999 remake of Castle's House on Haunted Hill.
Like most horror movies that try to cash in on the mood of the Halloween season, this one has more corn than scares.
Beck directs a script so damaged it's a wonder that the Kriticos family and their annoying nanny (Rah Digga) don't escape through plot holes.
A genuinely spectacular waste of money...Thirteen Ghosts has nothing going for it beyond its wildly excessive production design.
The movie is about as much fun as being trapped in a hall of mirrors with a convocation of serial killers.
Latest News for Thirteen Ghosts
April 12, 2007:
Sequel Buzz on "Haunted Hill" and "Fast and the Furious"?
For those of you who were desperately waiting to see a sequel to "House on Haunted Hill," your wait is soon over. Also, raise your hand if you're interested in seeing... More...
September 08, 2005:
Dark Lot to Deliver Three New Horror Flicks
Variety reports that Odd Lot Entertainment will launch a genre division known as Dark Lot, and their first plan is to deliver a three-movie series currently known as "The... More...
March 30, 2005:
Paramount Believes in "Superstition"
Seems like screenwriter Neal Marshall Stevens ("13 Ghosts") impressed the Paramount folks with his "Superstition" screenplay. Described by Variety as the... More...
October 22, 2001:
The art direction of that house is clearly amazing... that's one cool-looking set. Will that sell a movie though? ![]()
More...
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