O Fantasma de Jéssica

This production was shot entirely on videotape in 1991, and it features a good if standard plot about a woman who comes back from the dead after being brutally murdered. The photography is richly atmospheric, and that is the movie's best asset. The images have a beautiful film-like quality and it features several genuine chills. However, the direction and acting are amateurish and this detracts from the overall effect. Still, it's worth a look.

What do you get when you have bad acting, bad directing, scenes that are excruciatingly long, terrible lighting, painful editing, and awful effects? You get Jessica: A Ghost Story Seems its shot on betacam, which is fine, but the lighting has to compliment this medium. In this case it does not. There are a few CU's where the person's face is entirely in shadow. One scene in particular is the scene at the psychiatrists. It's a joke if you ask me. Some of the scenes were so long that they could have easily been cut in half... but I guess then they wouldn't have a film at feature length. The main character is incredibly flat. He's the LEAD male, so he should have some "hero" elements to his character, but he does not. He whines and is scared the entire film. I could go on, but I don't want to waste my time. Although the lighting was terrible, I must say that they did have nice camera movement. Too bad the lighting didn't compliment it. The cover of the DVD is nice, and that's where it ends. Just terrible.

JESSICA: A GHOST STORY is as the name implies a ghost story. The theme is meant to be horror but comes across closer to comedy!

A woman comes who was brutally murdered comes back from the dead. This constitutes what this movie attempts to pass off as a plot. There is really nothing more to it. The movie comprises of a series of loosely connected scenes involving a guy who had an affair with this woman prior to her death.

Immediately from the opening scenes, this movie has the appearance of a "straight-to-DVD" effort. Unlike gems such as VACANCY 2, the movie has no sense of direction or creativity and certainly gives "straight-to-DVD" movies a bad name! The direction is as poor as can be with a complete lack of suspense, scares or tension. Even the drama elements are hopelessly handled and represent something more boring than even the worst soap opera you may have had the misfortune of enduring.

The acting across the board is absolutely abysmal with no one actor involved managing to show even the slightest potential of a successful acting career.

Many of the individual scenes are incredibly long, with very long pauses between dialogue exchanges. I'm not exaggerating!

The only reason I give this movie a rating of 2 rather than 1 is because some of the poor acting combined with even worse dialogue made for a few unintentional laughs. I stress the word "few" in that sentence. This is not overall one of the "so-bad-it's-good" movies like CAMP BLOOD or THE NAIL GUN MASSACRE. If you want to laugh hysterically, watch those movies. If you want to see a proper horror movie about ghosts watch THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE, THE CHANGELING, RINGU, THE EYE (original Korean version), THE GRUDGE, ONE MISSED CALL or PHONE.

I advise anyone who has had the good fortune of avoiding seeing JESSICA: A GHOST STORY to keep up the good work! Just forget this movie exists. Don't spare a thought for it!

Although most of this has been done before, it's clear the makers of this low budget movie put a lot of effort into it. The photography and music are good, and there are some scary things in it, but some of the acting pulls it down. All in all, it's better than average for a small independent flick. 7 out of 10 stars.

I don't always give credence to other people's reviews, because, well, I'm one of those people who think Smoky and the Bandit was a great entertaining movie. So I can't spot average acting from great acting. I can only tell horrible acting, like say, Chuck Norris. And this wasn't at all that bad at all. That said, this is in 4:3 old TV style format. And it looks like an old TV movie. The acting is OK, but the plot isn't great. Still, the very nature of how it's put together makes it look almost like someone's documentary rather than a movie, and it does have a few surprise scenes in it that will give you a scare. And that's what it's all about. It's a low budget Halloween treat, which you'll probably watch once and then give away to your friend. So grab the popcorn and the off brand soda that you'd get out of the machine at the local $5 movie theater, turn the lights off, and enjoy!