Kill Katie Malone

Prior to actually switching on the movie, this had promise. The premise that somebody might buy a ghost on eBay (or the copyright friendly film version of YouBid) interested me and I was eager to see how the story unfolded.

Unfortunately, a promising idea has been sold out to the tune of yet another college/teen horror thriller where a bunch of attractive American teenagers spend half the film running around a college or dorm from some kind of terrifying something that wants to kill them. Feel free to replace terrifying something with 'murderous ghost', 'axe wielding maniac', 'Freddy Kreuger' or whatever. It doesn't matter. The play out is the same and we've all seen it a million times before.

Direction is typically brash and predictable, akin to an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with less camp. Our protagonists make all the usual horror movie victim mistakes and the haphazard introduction of the haunting is far too over-the-top. Too much is shown too soon and the inevitable killing scenes are silly to the point of absurd.

There's really nothing new here. An original idea is squandered for the sake of a safe return on the budget (one assumes). The result is something forgettable and bland.

The plot: A trio of college students buy a box with a ghost in it, not expecting the box to truly be haunted.

Kill Katie Malone is basically a combination of the Robert Louis Stevenson short story "The Bottle Imp" and some stupid eBay auctions that caught the attention of the media, when people tried to sell ghosts. Predictably, eBay wasn't very amused, and it's now against their Terms of Service to sell ghosts, haunted items, or other supernatural things.

Apparently, these kids got in before the ban, and they buy a haunted box. Ooooh, creepy. The ghost allegedly has the power to grant wishes, but it's very clingy and family-oriented. If you say anything about abandoning her or breaking up the family, it tries to kill you. The only way to get rid of it is to sell it on eBay.

This is an absolutely ridiculous idea for a movie. The Robert Louis Stevenson story was actually quite interesting, because it offered what seemed like an unsolvable paradox. Kill Katie Malone, however, is just a generic slasher with a stupid plot. I'd have trouble recommending it to anyone, even bored teenagers. If you've got nothing else to do, I suppose you could waste your time on this, but I'm not sure why you would bother, when you could memorize prime numbers or the digits of pi. Either would probably be more exciting than watching this movie.

After the first 30 minutes I knew I couldn't expect much from this movie. Almost all typical "ghost thriller" clichés are used. Nothing new or unexpected. I tried to give this movie a chance anyway, but at the end I still was disappointed. The creepy scenes aren't very creepy. The story doesn't make sense sometimes (one scene she hates him, next scene she loves him..) and as mentioned the story is just too predictable to entertain. I watched it till the end because I hoped it would get better or more thrilling at the end, but that wasn't the case. You shouldn't watch this movie if you are not a big fan of this type of films, and even if you are, you probably won't get too excited.

Two guys and a girl are tickled pink to discover a ghost for sale on eBay. Apparently the ghost is capable of granting wishes. One of the dudes simply can't resist placing a bid, with a little contribution from his buddy. A package soon arrives containing what seems to be nothing more than an old jewelery box with a crappy locket inside. Obviously the locket holds a photo of Katie Malone. Suddenly people on campus are mysteriously dropping like flies. It's almost as if they're possessed by some masochistic entity. Some average acting leads us through a series of mildly creepy moments... ... ... you know what? I don't even know why I watch this crap let alone review it. There's not even any boobs... except Dean Cain! Run away!

Check out my IMDb List for some better suggestions. "HORROR/THRILLER: Obscure, Overlooked & Underrated" http://www.imdb.com/list/8QFZ78e4Ar8/

After thinking they've purchased a gag-gift on an internet auction, a group of friends find their new toy actually contains a malicious ghost who stops at nothing to interfere with the outside forces amongst the group, forcing them to find a way of dealing with the angry spirit.

This turned out to be a rather enjoyable entry. One of the biggest pluses here is the fairly different take on the killer-ghost genre, with the ability thrown in that ghosts can be contained into an object and then used as what amounts to genies from the legend, a unique concept that does some good work here. The fact that this tends to go for long periods of time trying to set up points where the interaction become necessary is a bit of contention, since the film's not really that interesting in those periods and not a lot goes on worth getting excited about, but the decent amount of gore in the kills and a pretty tense number of confrontations throughout the storyline definitely save it and make it pretty entertaining.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.