Kill Katie Malone

(2010) Kill Katie Malone HORROR

Another low budget, straight to DVD movie starring Dean Cain as Robert, pleading with his daughter to not discard this small metal box, and something happens to her as a result without the movie telling viewers what. Then the movie jumps to this small group of three college teens with one of them bidding on this 'ghostly' box on-line, which runs like EBay. By the time they get the metal box, it said that it would grant some wishes. And as the movie is progressing, as it turns out, the name Katie Malone is a deathly ghostly figure who's lived a life of cruelty, and craves death to anybody connected to her. No police involve or any type of questioning. Extremely forgettable movie overall.

This one starts out with a reasonably fun premise - three college friends, Jim (Stephen Colletti), Dixie (Jonathan 'Lil J' McDaniel) and Ginger (Masiela Lusha), purchase a ghost in a box on an online auction, and stupidly release the spirit to wreak havoc - but the manner in which the film unfolds is so bland and unimaginative that I soon lost interest, propping open my eyelids, praying for it to all be over as soon as possible.

Director Carlos Ramos Jr. delivers mediocre spooky goings-on (CGI jump scares) and a couple of gore-free death scenes, while his cast give terrible performances, my award for worst acting going to the teacher who bites off her own tongue (she's hilariously bad!). Fortunately, Masiela Lusha is very easy on the eye and helps make the going a bit easier, but sadly doesn't go as far as getting her kit off - a shame, because if any horror film was crying out for a gratuitous shower scene to pep things up, it's this one.

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.

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.