Thir13en Ghosts




Released: 2001

MPAA Rating: R

Genre: Ghost/Haunted House

Nuts and Bolts: Arthur Kriticos and his family inherit the palatial mansion of their estranged uncle, Cyrus Kriticos. But all is not as it seems as Arthur is drawn in to a carefully engineered plot that hinges on the spiritual potential of twelve macabre ghosts left trapped inside the house. But who is the mysterious 13th ghost?

Summary: Eccentric millionaire Cyrus Kriticos leads a team of ghost hunters on a mission through an old dilapidated junkyard. He wants to capture a ghost. With him is an aloof psychic named Dennis Rafkin who suffers from strange visions whenever he gets within ten feet of a ghost. Also present are two hunters known as Damon and Kalina. Spraying blood across the junkyard, Cyrus’ team baits the ghost into their circle. The ghost is the displaced spirit of a serial killer known as the Juggernaut Using a large containment device and several mystical binding spells; the crew is able to trap the Juggernaut inside of the Cube. But the Juggernaut doesn’t go quietly and several people including Cyrus himself are killed.

Some time later we meet Cyrus’ extended family. Arthur Kriticos is a math teacher who lives in a small apartment with his children Kathy and Bobby and their babysitter Maggie. Six months ago, Arthur lost his wife as well as his house and family savings to a tragic fire. Now the family live in troubled times and they are constantly nipping at each other’s heels. A lawyer named Ben Moss arrives and tells Arthur that all his money problems are solved.

Arthur has inherited his uncle Cyrus’ palatial home in nearby Willow Grove. Ben takes them to the house and we see that Cyrus lived in a huge mansion, which is almost entirely constructed out of ectobar glass. Along the glass panes are hundreds upon hundreds of etchings written in ancient Latin. No one can understand what any of the words say.

Standing at the front door is Dennis Rafkin. Dennis is posing as an electrician and explains that he needs to check the circuit breaker. Using a large gold key the group enters the house. They are amazed to discover a huge foyer, which contains round spinning plates on the floor. Each plate is set inside of another and each is marked with a bizarre arcane sigil. While Arthur signs the paperwork, the others wander the house. Dennis is actually there to collect money that Cyrus owed him. He goes down into the basement where he discovers that the twelve ghosts he helped to collect for Cyrus are contained between its walls. The ghosts have limited mobility but they can wander about freely through some of the glass catacombs.

Finding a pair of glasses that allows him to see the dead, Dennis returns upstairs to warn Arthur. The lawyer Ben dismisses him as a crackpot but Dennis adamant in his claims that there are ghosts in the basement. Arthur agrees to humor the loony and goes to find Maggie and his children (who of course have wandered off on their own). While Arthur searches for the kids, Ben goes down to the basement.

We learn that Ben is fully aware of Cyrus’ activities and he also knows of the twelve ghosts. Picking up a satchel of money, Ben accidentally activates a device, which causes many of the rooms in the house to begin shifting. Some of the ghosts are freed from the containment spells and one known as the Angry Princess pursues him. Backing up Ben gets in the way of two shifting panes of glass, which slice him in two down the middle.

As Arthur and the others stray into different sections of the basement, we come to find the other ten ghosts not already mentioned. There is: The First Born Son, The Torso, The Bound Woman, The Torn Prince, The Pilgrimess, The Great Child, The Dire Mother, The Hammer, The Withered Lover and The Jackal.

Arthur manages to find Kathy but Bobby is still missing. As they are searching, the ghost of the Jackal attacks Kathy. The Jackal tears at Kathy’s shirt and back while Arthur tries to help her. At this point, the ghost hunter known as Kalina appears and forces the Jackal away with quicksilver flares. Kalina explains that she managed to get inside the house while some of the outside panels were in mid-shift.

Kalina takes Arthur back to the library where she explains to him what is happening. She shows him an ancient book known as the Arcanum. An astrologer named Visillius wrote the Arcanum in the 15th century. Possessed by the devil, Visillius designed a machine known as the Ocularis Infernum (Eye of Hell). Powered by the 12 spirits of the Black Zodiac, the Ocularis Infernum could see into all things past and present. With such knowledge, a person could easily rule the world. Cyrus has used the Arcanum to build the Ocularis Infernum and the entire house was constructed as one large containment facility for both the device as well as the ghosts. Kalina explains to Arthur that a failsafe was written into the design. A thirteenth ghost must willingly sacrifice his or her life in the name of love in order to counter act the power of the other twelve. At this time, it is revealed that Arthur’s wife Jean is one of the ghosts trapped in the house. In order to save her soul as well as his children, he will have to become the thirteenth ghost.

The group returns to the basement to try and find Bobby and Maggie who are still missing. Dennis (having foreseen his own demise) encounters the Hammer and the Juggernaut. The Hammer smashes in his spine while the Juggernaut crushes his back against a wall brace. Arthur protects himself with a plate glass shield, which has containment sigils etched into them.

Meanwhile, Kalina finds Maggie who has discovered the controls for the Ocularis Infernum. Kalina reveals her true colors and knocks Maggie out. From out of the shadows steps Cyrus Kriticos alive and well! Cyrus and Kalina are actually in cahoots with one another. It is now revealed that the thirteenth ghost will not cancel the machine’s affect but rather enable it to happen. However, the final ghost must still be a willing sacrifice of blood and that is why Kalina needed to lie to Arthur. Cyrus decides that he no longer need Kalina and leaves her to her own devices. Kalina tries to follow him but is crushed between two shifting panes of glass.

Arthur finally makes it back down to the foyer where Bobby and Kathy are seated amidst a circle of whirling blades. Cyrus appears and Arthur and he get into a fight. But the house has shifted just enough to allow the twelve ghosts access to the upper levels. They grab a hold of Cyrus and pull him into the whirling blades. Cyrus is chopped to pieces and dies for good this time. Arthur then dives between the whirling blades to save his kids.

Meanwhile, Maggie wakes up and wreaks havoc with the control panel. The massive gears of the Ocularis Infernum grind together and eventually explode. The mystic sigils containing the twelve spirits falter and the ghosts are free to leave.

Acting Dialogue: Tony Shalhoub, F Murray Abraham and Matthew Lillard all offer pretty solid performances in their respective roles of Arthur Kriticos, Cyrus Kriticos and Dennis Rafkin. Shalhoub shows us some great emotion sequences when he finally learns the truth about his wife. Shannon Elizabeth seems to serve no purpose other than to show off her $40,000 dollar dentures. She really doesn’t bring anything to the roll other than a cute smile and a few screams. The kid who plays Bobby Kriticos is annoying as all hell. I can’t even understand what this little fucker is saying half the time. Good Christ lad, pick up a fucking English primer and learn how to conjugate some fucking verbs will ya! On the plus side, Matthew Lillard and Rah Digga (Maggie Jones) are the real scene-stealers here. Matthew plays his trademark crackpot roll and he’s really not all that different here than he was as Stu Macher in Scream. But that is hardly to the film’s detriment as both Lillard and Digga bring some personality to an otherwise bland cast of characters.

Gore: There is a lot of good gushy gore in this one. The ghosts themselves are like something from one of Clive Barker’s wet dreams. Each one is a tortured bloodied mess of a human with various scars, cuts, gunshot wounds burns and decapitations. One of the best gore sequences involves the death of the lawyer. He is standing between two razor sharp glass panes that come together slicing him in half length ways. We see his front half slowly sliding down the blood-streaked glass. This is one of the best death scenes I’ve seen in a horror movie to date. The film is worth renting for this scene alone.

Guilty Pleasures: The ghost known as the Angry Princess walks around naked boasting a sliced up pair of extremely fake looking boobies. Interesting make up job but nothing really to turn one on.

The Good: I had read several reviews on Thir13en ghosts before I actually got around to seeing it. After analyzing what I had read I completely expected this film to be a total piece of shit. But to my surprise, it really wasn’t half bad. Let’s face it. After enduring hack-n-slash films (Emphasis on HACK) like I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legends: Final cut, we really have nowhere to go but up right?

More than anything, Thir13en Ghosts is an eye-candy film. The ghosts themselves are the real spotlight huggers and they are certainly a different breed of spirit than the sheet wearing chain rattlers one would expect from an episode of Scooby Doo. The ghosts are not transparent wisps of smoke but rather they are three-dimensional physical bodies bearing the torturous markings of their passing. They can only be seen through special glasses and they constantly bounce around appearing and disappearing in quick moments of flash photography. These bad boys are NOT to be fucked with. They are gruesome and they are mean. These guys are without a doubt the real meat-n-potatoes of the film and they express an eerie quality that is both frightening and disturbing.

There are a lot of good uses of the camera shown throughout the film. One of the most provocative of which occurs during the opening credits. We see a scene of Arthur staring out the window at his wife and young children. As the music cues in, Arthur remains in the same position but his background changes from that of a nice house to that of an old dilapidated apartment. Sound bytes detailing a tragic fire play in the background and we are shown the passage of time.

Another scene that I thought was really cool involved Kathy and the Angry Princess. Kathy discovers an enormous pristine bathroom and in her glee, she begins splashing water on her face from the bathtub. We then see the shot from the POV of the angry princess, who is sitting in the tub, which is now filled with blood. The walls of the room are dirty and stained and the words “I’m sorry” are written on the floor in blood. Kathy continues splashing about the water because she is not aware of the dark history native to this room.

Director Steve Beck also makes great use of sound FX in this film. As we listen to ear piercing screeches of metal assaulting our ears every time a ghost appears, we are reminded of his work on the House on Haunted Hill. Fans of the 1999 remake of that film will likely enjoy Thir13en Ghosts. The sound effects work well against the snapshot flashes of the ghosts and the combination succeeds in painting a fairly creepy looking portrait.

Thir13en Ghosts may not be the most original concept to come down the pike, but it’s a good way to spend a Friday night with some pals and a tray of beer and nachos.

The Bad: I suppose the worst quality this film has to offer comes from the Kriticos family themselves. To put it simply, they’re just not very interesting. I understand that Beck was trying to go for the ‘every-man’ shtick with this, but when you are dealing with a film like Thir13en Ghosts, the ‘every-man’ concept simply won’t do. For films of this caliber you need exciting animated over-the-top characters with extreme personalities. It’s no wonder that Matthew Lillard dominates every scene that he is in.

If there’s one quality in a horror movie that really turns me off, it’s when the entire back-story is summed up within a five-minute sound byte. After letting the script get away from him for about twenty minutes, Beck has the character of Kalina tell us the skinny concerning the ghosts. It’s a pretty interesting history, but it’s the sort of thing that I felt was kind of contrived and would have been more effective if it had been spaced out more throughout the course of the film.

There seems to be this growing trend in horror movies in regards to black actors and actresses. Half the time they are not even actual actors but are actually rap artists. They almost ALWAYS survive these flicks and usually with a footnote concerning the “Crazy white folk” that are responsible for all the bad shit they have to endure. This has occurred in Halloween: H2O, Urban Legends, Deep Blue Sea, Ghosts of Mars, House on Haunted Hill (1999), Ghost, Urban Legends: Final Cut, Ghostbusters and Thir13en Ghosts. I refer to this new stereotype as the Whoopi syndrome and as you can see this film is no different. Most of the times it comes off as entertaining and even humorous, but it’s a trend that has occurred with such frequency that it goes beyond predictable. It’s now practically a guarantee that a horror film will end with a surviving black character commenting on the afore mentioned “Crazy ass honkies.”

This movie is really bankrupt for original ideas. Practically every character archetype and plot element is liberally borrowed from other films. The spirit reclamation agents are really just low-key versions of the Ghostbusters and Cyrus even makes use of an Igan inspired containment device that he calls the Cube. The characters fall into the typical pratfalls inherent in every generic haunted house movie. The group splits up, no one heeds the warnings of the other, and there is always at least one smarmy asshole that feels the need to taunt the ghosts. And of course everything culminates with the house blowing up. It’s a fun flick, but this movie really doesn’t offer us anything that we haven’t seen in at least a dozen other films from the past ten years.

And finally, the climax of the film was kind of lacking. Apparently the only thing that was needed to be done was to screw up Cyrus’ control panel. Having accomplished that, the ghosts are set free and there really is no need to continue with the movie. Alas, we need to have pop re-affirm his love for his family by risking his life to save them from the whirling blades (Which would have stopped spinning anyway had he just waited three minutes). And of course, it all concludes with the house blowing up. (Sigh) With the exception of the last meeting between Arthur and his late wife, the ending of Thir13en Ghosts is quite under whelming.

Great Lines:

“If you haven’t noticed, I’m a little bit of a freak!”  --Dennis Rafkin.

“There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.”  --Dennis trailing behind Arthur as they are looking for a way out of the basement.

“Greatness requires sacrifice.”  --Cyrus to Kalina.

“Hey, Glass Family Robinson! You’re wasting your breath. This is ectobar glass. They’re shatter proof! Sound proof!”  --Dennis warning the others as they try to break down the glass walls.

Overall Rating: 7 out of 10 severed heads.
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