Ghost Town: The Movie

After checking out the previous comments I see that I am not alone in my views of this movie. On the first watching I was confused and disappointed. So after watching it a second time I took some time and tried to figure out what was wrong. The comments here only helped to confirm my conclusions. Have you ever bought a plastic model of a car, opened the box and visualized what it would look like completed? Now imagine giving that model to a five year old and let them put it together unsupervised. When it's done you will have a fairly good idea what Ghost Town looks like. Each scene seemed to have all of the basic requirements to create tension, build the story, and advance the character arc. I could see all of the individual small parts just like looking at a plastic model straight out of the box. And just like that model I could envision the final product fully assembled. But for Ghost Town that is where everything falls apart. You can "see" the whole story, which is not overly complicated or deep. But it looks like it was assembled by a five year old. That creates a great deal of frustration on the part of the viewer. It is one thing to watch a bad movie. It is quite another to watch what appears to be a good movie put together with little understanding of plot, timing, or character development. Watching each scene you can "feel" where it is supposed to go, but each time the editing sends it way off track. Like a previous comment I suggest that you never let the editor near another movie again. At least not until he goers back to school and learns how a movie should be assembled. Otherwise you end up with a plastic model that doesn't quite match the box cover art!

They may have tried hard,but there is a rash of inexperience both in front of the camera and behind it that kills the film almost immediately and makes the viewer wish he had chosen something else to watch.Even the more experienced actors like Rance Howard and Bill McKinney come away looking bad because of the painfully ridiculous dialog written for them by the film's inexperienced script writers.The story is interesting enough,though,and would probably have come out looking a lot better with a more seasoned crew in charge.While it might be true that this film was not intended to be a blockbuster,it still has to be entertaining,and it comes up painfully short.

First off let me tell you I worked on this movie in a small capacity. I have worked on quite a few television shows and movies in the North Carolina area over the years. I usually don't comment on these things for obvious reasons. But in this case I feel I should point out a few "behind the scenes" items and let you come to your own conclusions. For an smallish independent movie it was quite well organized and planned out. Usually these things are often disorganized messes due to the lack of experience amongst the producers and crew alike. This was not the case. I could see that this feature was going to turn out quite well. It wasn't going to start any fires, but it should have been a decent little story. But this did not happen. I remember many days and nights on the set were miserably cold and/or wet. I also remember that the "second" director (his first time according to IMDb)was often missing on set for long periods of time. I remember this as it was noticed out by several other members of the crew as well. The bulk of the work was done by the first director and the crew, all of whom were very professional and diligent. Yet the first thing I noticed was that movie title has the "second" director's name prominently displayed above the name Ghost Town. Quite strange. Somewhere along the line what I witnessed on the set was not translated into what I just watched.

I agree with Lawrence. I saw this at AOF. The editing was extremely difficult to digest, very D grade and amateur editing. The scenes drug on, very painful at times. They almost had a story and characters were just lost. It's a shame cause some of the shots were really, really nice and this movie could of been OK with some proper, professional, post talent. Rating this a ten is very humorous, very few ten professional movies exists, and it is very obvious that these must be people from this production rating it. That's OK, everyone wants their movie to be the best ;) but this film is far from a ten but a very good try for real amateur film makers. It looks like a first film but apparently it's not the companies first attempt. They are really going to have to step it up and make QUALITY projects if they want to compete and play with the big boys. It's a bummer to see the director also commenting on this page defending the movie, that will surely loses the integrity of the project fast. Directors should step back and let the film speak for itself and let the peoples honest judgment take play, people are smart they will tell you what they like and don't like. :) On a good note the setting was nice and the costumes looked great and some of the characters were really fun but should of been given a little more time to develop, seems like some characters had too much of the screen and others needed more. Very Confusing. Needs serious tightening and attention. Hope this is constructive criticism not to be taken to heart. Good luck on the next project! JBerg

I fell in love with the story Heaven's Neighors quite a while ago. So naturally I kept my eyes open for anything Jeff Kennedy is associated with. Heaven's was a beautifully crafted story that tugged at your heart and stayed with you, rumbling around in the back of your mind for weeks. Unfortunately I cannot say the same for Ghost Town. The plot and characters are incredibly hard to follow. The storyline suffers from horrible editing. And it lacked that special touch that brought you in to the world that was created through the lens. To be honest, Heaven's, according to the credits was written and directed by Kennedy. And on Ghost Town he was only co-director. Dean Teaster/West was the other co-director as well as being involved in the story as well as producing. So I cannot say for certain how much of an impact Kennedy had on the movie, but judging by the end product it wasn't much. If Heaven's Neighbors is an example of his film making fingerprint, then Ghost Town was clearly not in his hands.