Ghost Machine

If you believe the box, this film is about a group of young American soldiers who use a video game simulator to have a little fun before encountering a ghost in the machine, quite literally. Of course, if you are paying attention, you'll quickly notice the soldiers speak with accents and drive on the wrong side of the road. As the film is an Irish one, I suspect the cadets are meant to be Irish, not American. Beyond that, it's about right.

I watched this one with two associates and cheap vodka filtered to make it taste better, though I am not a fan of vodka. The primarily chick was mildly attractive, which I appreciate, but beyond that I think we should look at the words of the critics (besides myself). Here's three samples: "If you have seen Doom, Stay Alive, Death Row, Gamer, etc., etc., ad nauseam, you have seen Ghost Machine. There are some cringe-inducing moments of violence, I'll give it that. And Rachel Taylor makes the movie watchable for awhile, but even she can't save it from the murky camera work, hackneyed storyline, and gawdawful CGI." ... "The horror elements are not that scary and the sci-fi is not that convincing." ... "This is hands down, one of the worst movies I've seen in recent history... The most enjoyment I got out of this movie was when the screen went black and the credits finally rolled." Well, they said it better than I could. Rachael Taylor good, CGI and plot bad. If you feel the need to rent this one, be sure to be plenty drunk or something, because it probably won't hold your attention. I find that it picks up after a while, but we are given many parts where it drops down again and no reason to care about the characters... whose names I already forgot, though I think the guy who looks like Tom Cruise is named Tom.

If it weren't for the language and gore, this would look just like your typical SyFy channel movie of the week. The plot (described elsewhere on this site) is hackneyed and uninspired. The ending is particularly predictable.

Don't get me wrong, the film is at least competent, it's just that the producers didn't have the talent, budget, or script to produce anything impressive.

Adding to the distaste is the political slant of the director and writer(s). You know...all noncommissioned officers are sex perverts and sadists, acting openly to molest female enlisted personnel and torture prisoners to death; each female soldier is worth ten male soldiers due to her commitment to having to "prove" herself throughout her military career; and the government routinely captures and tortures female terrorists, which would be a bad thing even if they are in fact murderous bitches, but it might be a good thing, too....who knows?

What it boils down to for me is that this film is made with some skill, but I never cared about what was happening to the characters. This is in direct opposition to some other films that are made rather poorly, but which have compelling characters and a decent story.

Choose this one if you don't bore easily.

The basic plot: a group of soldiers and their gamer buddies play a haunted video game, where if you die in the game, you die for real.

I didn't have high expectations for a movie titled Ghost Machine, and, when I read the synopsis, I lowered my expectations even further. If all you're looking for is a cheesy, derivative movie that looks like a video game, then I'm sure you'll be satisfied. Otherwise, I'd say you should avoid it, because it's only going to annoy you.

The writing was a bit stupid, but any bad writing was dwarfed by the monumentally bad idea of a haunted video game. The acting and special effects were alright. There's a bit of gore, titillation, implied torture, and an attempted rape. If the story had focused on these elements, instead of recreating a generic console game, maybe this would have been a better movie... but I kind of doubt it.

I watched it last night on Netflix instant streaming. Acting was good and I like watching Rachel Taylor, but script was too much like the Matrix. There is a software and you get plugged in and live in a virtual world, but there is a creepy woman who was abused and want to kill everyone. We don't know anything about her except she was a terrorist and was sexually abused by a sleezy top rank officer. So now she wants revenge. Cinematography was very good and so was music, but script was just so average. Same gun toting military search for a bad person and one by one they get killed. I've seen it so many times before. well, if you have absolutely nothing else to watch, then this movie would suffice, but look for something else first, unless like me, you wanted to see Rachel Taylor.

A couple of computer scientists working with the army borrow their expensive experimental computer equipment to map out a haunted prison, that was secretly used to torture terrorists to death, so they can create an authentic environment to play a virtual reality first person shooter with their stoner buddies. Turns out the prison was haunted by the vengeful spirit of a cyber- terrorist who died there. She hacks into their game system leading to exciting adventures for our plucky band of heroes.

The atmosphere of the prison is excellent, I assume it is a prison in Northern Ireland. Rachael Taylor, playing an army private, love interest and experimental subject really stood amongst the acting performances. The others were playing such very thinly written characters that we learn almost nothing about any of them. Perhaps all the other characters were merely game characters and the whole film takes place in a virtual reality game she has been playing from the start.

The story seems very similar to other films and it really pales in comparison to some of those. The ghost was okay and I suppose the CGI gore is really to be expected in the context of the film. Some of the early action sequences really do capture the authentic feel of the first person shooter games.