Ghost town - La città fantasma

What starts out with a modicum of promise (outlaw gang runs afoul of a Wiccan-practicing preacher in the Old West) ends up being just another modern-day teens being killed one by one by evil spirits. And these are some mighty powerful ghosts, as they derail a bus and deactivate everyone's cell phones. The deaths are reasonably creative, but it is just cookie cutter, by the numbers slaughter. There's some mumbo jumbo about sacred totems, but it all comes to nothing in the end. Worst of all, the cowboy ghosts are about as scary as a Spongebob Squarepants cartoon -- which, come to think of it, is a whole lot scarier!n I had the misfortune of watching this on the same day that "The Others" was playing on a different channel. Now, there are some truly scary ghosts!

I happened to catch a portion of this movie on the Sy-Fy channel about a year ago and, since it looked pretty good at the time, I decided to procure a copy recently. Having now seen this movie in its entirety I can honestly say that it wasn't too bad. Essentially, "Reb Halland" (Billy Drago) is the leader of an outlaw gang back in the days of the old west who has made a deal with the Devil for immortality. "Preacher McCready" (Gil Gerard) is a mystic who comes to the town of Hope Springs to protect it from Reb Halland's gang by erecting 5 Wiccan totems in various places. His plan works to perfection until a man comes along and pulls one out of the ground. When that happens, all hell breaks loose as Reb's gang kills everyone in town-on a Friday the 13th no less. They then commit suicide and wait for an opportunity to kill again. Fast forward to the present when a bus carrying students from Carmel College find themselves in this same town-and it just happens to be on a Friday the 13th. Now rather than reveal any more of the film and risk ruining it for those who haven't seen it, I will just say that for a made-for-television movie it had decent special effects and enough suspense to keep things somewhat interesting for the most part. Likewise, it didn't hurt to have two attractive actresses in Jessica Rose (as "Jenna") and Annabelle Wallis ("Serena"). Again, while it certainly wasn't the best horror movie ever made, I found it to be enjoyable enough and I rate it as about average.

A bus load of college students & staff end up in an Old West ghost town inhabited by the wicked specters of outlaws. Will anyone survive?

Released to TV in 2009, "Ghost Town" is part Old West Western and part modern horror, mostly the latter. It's similar to 1999's "Purgatory" in that they're both TV Westerns with supernatural elements, except this one is decidedly horror-oriented. The "hip" youths hanging out in an abandoned Western town is reminiscent of the biker flick "Angels Hard as They Come" (1971). The difference here being that this group is trapped and fending off wicked apparitions.

I liked how the group dwindles down to little more than a handful and they have to rise to the challenge of surviving or dying. Joey Ansah stands out as Bonesera, aka "Bone," a bully football player who may or may not redeem himself. It's also nice to see Gil Gerard ("Buck Rogers") again in a peripheral role.

As for the female cast, the movie scores pretty well: Israeli Shelly Varod (Katie) looks like she has a smidgen of Far East Asian in her. She's cute, but I prefer Annabelle Wallis (Serena), Jessica Rose (Chloe) and even the outlaw babe (Cvetelina Teneva), looks-wise anyway.

As long as you can handle the limitations of low-budget productions, like the other two flicks noted above, I give this a marginal recommendation.

The film runs 1 hour, 25 minutes and was shot in Old Tucson, Arizona.

GRADE: C+/B-

Before being commissioned for producing films for Syfy, UFO Entertainment were perhaps the preceding "mockbuster" company to The Asylum, although their movies actually weren't that obviously inspired by current films. Some people would call "Dragon Storm" UFO's analogue to "Reign of Fire". They're sadly mistaken.

"Ghost Town" would be the aforementioned analogue; it doesn't outwardly resemble "Reign of Fire" but there is one connection; it's more boring than anyone could possibly expect.

A debate team and hockey team are heading towards home when they somehow find themselves under attack from ghost cowboys. Unfortunately nobody remembered to bring any personnality on their trip and nothing else provides any reason for audiences to be interested.

The opening set-up isn't bad. An Old West town in 1866 is invaded by some ruthless gunslingers, who just happen to be cultists. An out gunned sheriff, and a minister stand in their way, winding up with bullet holes in their chests along with everybody else in town. The dying Christian minister, who (ready?) practices Wickan beliefs (hey, I didn't write this thing) leaves a message in blood on a window. Finally, the cultists shoot themselves.

Then the film disintegrates. Modern day: noisy teens arguing. On a bus. You'll know exactly the order of deaths from how stupid they each act in this scene. The ghosts make the bus and everybody's cell phones stop working. How come ghosts from the 19th Century always seem to understand modern technology? Soon, the old smooching couple in a hayloft getting attacked routine becomes the first cliché. There's a lot of jabbering about pentagrams, Friday 13th, and other stuff, but not much point to why it's all happening. The only reasons I could see for the ghosts' wanting to blast everybody would be either: 1) the teens were transparent one dimensional characters that were simply annoying, and/or 2) most of the cast sorely needed acting lessons. Whatever their reason was, these ghosts kill creatively; one guy even meets his end spitting up motor oil.

There's enough weirdness in this to make it an OK watch. But don't expect a whole lot from it.