Due piedipiatti acchiappafantasmi

Sometimes a film can be so bad, it's totally enjoyable. God bless the abstraction of a director, Alan Smithee. The real director of the film "Ghost Fever", Lee Madden was too ashamed to take credit for this disasterpiece. It is a celebration in all that is bad in movies, but when it was on rotation in 1999, I couldn't take my pre-teen eyes off of it! There was an appealing creepiness about how truly awful the movie is. I've been waiting for it to air since, but I haven't been able to experience the wonder of a film so bad I ponder how it was ever produced.

Sherman Helmsley keeps his head up through it all. You have to respect a man that gives it all in a film he must have known was a complete mess. His comedic performance is nothing new, but he is a good guide through a tangled web of a story that becomes completely lost in horrible direction. Look for the Mummy scene. It is a genuinely disturbing image that was supposed to be played for laughs.

My question is, why didn't this movie have a cult following? Am I the only person on Earth who loves this messy treat?

GHOST FEVER is possibly one of the greatest bad movies ever made. MADE might be too strong of a word - regurgitated and somewhat spliced together in an editing bay is maybe more apropos. Hemsley had a lot of faith in this Ghostbusters-like rip-off and it tanked big time and messy lawsuits followed btwn Hemsley and the producers. The director, Lee Madden was so aghast at the finished product he took his name off and they slapped on the infamous Alan Smithee credit. The script is credited to three hacks and the script is truly awful. Terrible. Sucky. Not one good joke. Plenty of groin and crotch humor and a truly offensive scene where they find machines in the basement of a Southern mansion that were used on slaves. One of the machines (which of course Hemsley gets trapped in) has two large hammers coming down close to the person's groin while a device is twirled into their backside (supposedly to give them rhythm!!!) Yikes. Oddly though Hemsley seems to turn over lots of the movie to his co-star Luis Avalos and Avalos gives one of the worst "comedic" performances ever captured on film. His double takes fail, his funny faces, his "fear" of the ghosts, his physical comedy - all of it fails. Yet, because the movie is jawdroppingly incompetent, it is cruelly enjoyable. You keep getting shocked by another terrible set piece. Like when a mummy appears wearing shades a bow-tie and a top hat and proceeds to BREAK DANCE. Then Hemsley and Avalos do a dance number and then when you are begging the movie to end there is a looooong boxing scene where Avalos boxes Smokin Joe Frazier (this scene goes on and on and has not one funny moment). A true cinematic nightmare. Seek it out if you DARE!!!

Comedy with its moments of comedy even if calling it a decent movie is an almost correct judgment. It is not so bad as to be memorable but it strives not to fall into the most desecrating ugliness.

My review was written in November 1987 after watching the film on Charter video cassette.

"Ghost Fever" is an earnest but unsuccessful attempt to resurrect the 1940s style of comedy associated with Abbott & Costello. Heavy dose of strained ethnic humor was released on a regional basis last March and is now a home video item.

Sherman Hemsley and Luis Avalosl poetry Buford and Benny, a pair of cops sent to evict two old ladies from their ante bellum mansion. The place is haunted by a spirit of Beauregard, an evil former slave owner (film's previous title was "Benny and Buford Meet the Bigoted Ghost"), who pulls practical jokes on the hapless heroes, while they dally with the beautiful blonde great-granddaughters of Beauregard. Commenting on the action are two other ghosts. Andy, played by Myron Healey, who is Beauregard's son and Jethro, Buford's ancestor (dual role for Hemsley).

Shenanigans climax pointlessly with Benny agreeing to fight ex-champ Terrible Tucker (played by former Heavyweight champ Joe Frazier) in order to raise money to save the mansion. Predictably dumb finish has the heroes better off dead.

Though Hemsley and Avalos are adequate farceurs, the material is lame and only interesting on a poor taste level (endless dialog referring to "spooks" and a wacky scene of Hemsley reading an illustrated Victorian-era porntome entitled "Groins of the Darker Species"). Pic was directed in Mexico in 1984 by Lee Madden, but anonymous later shooting caused him to have his name removed and fictitious Alan Smithee credited.

This movie is só incredibly unfunny it makes any man want to cry, the cliché are put on thicker than 5-year old peanut butter and in such a way that it actually sucks humour out of your heart, every single joke was badly timed and wouldn't have been funny if it were timed correctly.

Don't see this movie, there's a real chance you'll never be able to enjoy going to comedies again...ever.