Ghostkeeper

A bickering young couple and their sexy female friend are snowmobiling in the (Canadian?) wilderness when they run across an old hotel where they are forced to seek shelter from a sudden winter storm. At first the hotel seems to deserted, but then they run into a strange old woman who claims to be the caretaker and alludes to a having couple of "kids" "around somewhere". As night falls one of the girls disappears and the remaining pair realizes all is not as it seems in the hotel. This movie can be easily written-off as a cheap, Canadian rip-off of "The Shining", but that's not entirely fair--it also rips-off other movies like "The Sentinel" pretty severely. And it tries, very ham-handedly, to mine the native Canadian legend of the wendigo (spelled "windigo here for some reason).

This movie has very little going for it. The plot is pretty dumb and derivative. The dialogue is generally clunky (except maybe for a funny scene where the sexy blonde friend tells a story about seducing a substitute teacher when she was in high school). The characters range from bland to genuinely dislikeable (especially the guy). The girls both look good in their snowsuits but have no nude scenes, which doesn't have to be a deal-breaker except that the movie has one of those famous non-nude bathtub scenes just to kind of rub in the actual dearth of real skin. The one good thing I can say about this movie is that it does have a pretty effective atmosphere. The gloomy, snowbound hotel is eerie and portentous, even if there is no real payoff to justify all the eerie portentiousness.

This movie was made in the early 80's when the American horror film industry was starting to go south (figuratively), and the Canadian film industry, encourage by friendly tax laws, started to go south (literally). This movie is a little more ambitious than most of the Canadian tax shelter projects in that it wasn't content to be just another "Halloween" slasher movie knock-off. It kind of reminded me of "Death Ship", so if you liked that. . . It's hard to find to find these days though and probably not worth looking too hard for.

Ghostkeeper is not as good as others would have you believe. It does have a beautiful and creepy setting, and the film itself is rather creepy, but in a rather fake way. This is achieved mainly through the use of music, and whilst this is effective for the first 30 minutes or so, you get a bit sick of hearing the same music over and over.

I think this film could have been a whole lot better. You can see the potential whilst watching it, and within the first 30 minutes I had figured out several ways it could have been better. The plot is where everything falls apart. It's really about nothing much at all. The ending is a bit of a surprise, but is so shallow that you think "jeez, that's what this film has been building up to?" Despite the excellent setting, I can't really recommend Ghostkeeper. It's like a very poor mans version of The Shining. If slow pace, creepy atmosphere yet lack of plot is your thing, you may enjoy this, but otherwise I would skip it.

On a wintery New Year's Eve two women(Jenny and Chrissy)and one man(Marty)embark on a short snowmobile excursion.When the snowmobile breaks down,they are forced to seek refuge in a deserted hotel.There they confront powerful evil forces."Ghostkeeper" is a pretty creepy and atmospheric horror film which will keep you guessing until the end.The acting is solid and the atmosphere of fear and total isolation is well-captured.The locations sets(snowy mountains and a mansion in the middle of nowhere)provide some chills.Check it out if you are a horror fan.8 out of 10.

Ghostkeeper (1981)

** (out of 4)

Jenny (Riva Spier), Marty (Murray Ord) and Chrissy (Sheri McFadden) are out snowmobiling when they come across an old lodge. The three end up staying the night there when they encounter a strange old woman but they have no idea of knowing that there's much worse there.

GHOSTKEEPER is a Canadian horror film that I've been wanting to see for many years and especially since there were some really glowing reviews out there. Some people called this one of the creepiest movies ever made but after viewing it I'm going to guess that those who said that probably saw this as a child. With that being said, GHOSTKEEPER turned out to be one of the bigger disappointments out there.

It's really too bad that the film didn't work better because the setting and location were wonderful. I really loved the snowy look to the film and I thought that director Jim Makichuk was able to milk some atmosphere out of the low budget. However, all of that is pretty much wasted because there's really not too much going on here. Apparently the production ran out of money so the script was scrapped and they just went along with whatever felt right.

That explains why there's really not too much of a plot here but what really kills the film is its ultra-slow style that really makes the film drag at times. I did find the three leads to be good enough in their roles and the supporting players were good as well. The film at least had an atmosphere but at the end of the day it's clear that the director was wanting to try and cash-in on THE SHINING but it just didn't work.

A slow-burn (or should I say slow-freeze) chiller set deep in the snowy mountains of Canada, GHOSTKEEPER is effective at creating an atmosphere and not very effective at doing anything with it.

Three friends snowmobiling around the middle of nowhere for New Year's Eve soon find themselves stranded at a strange hotel, abandoned except for a mysterious old woman who seems to be keeping something from them. It sounds like a solid set-up for a generic '80s slasher, and I've seen the film often categorized as such, but I'd hesitate to call it one.

It's certainly not a "teens in the woods get picked off one by one by a madman" movie. It's instead a "slow descent into madness" type of movie; imagine if THE SHINING had a no-name Canadian cast and wasn't really very good.

That being said, icicles of atmosphere hang all over this thing. I always felt Paul Zaza to be an underrated player in the composer game, and his score here is wonderful. Understated and mysterious, GHOSTKEEPER would be practically nothing without it. It's also decently well-shot and the locations are beautiful.

A solid build-up unfortunately melts away in the second half. Characters who acted very similarly the entire film suddenly act completely different. Other characters show up randomly just to be immediately slaughtered. Everything feels very scattershot and aimless.

I feel like the film is very close to becoming a spot-on representation of a certain kind of Wendigo myth: a Wendigo that does not hunt as a beast, but instead rattles the aching, snow-addled minds around it into a cabin fever psychosis. Unfortunately, GHOSTKEEPER just doesn't quite get it right. Worth a look for fans of atmospheric horror, but by no means a must-see.