Death of a Ghost Hunter

Death of a Ghost Hunter is not a good movie. I would consider myself a horror film fanatic. With that said I've seen hundreds of horrible films from this genre and maybe a few dozen genuinely good ones. While I wouldn't classify this as relatively bad with regards to the genre it was also not good either.

The special effects were actually pretty good for a B movie. The plot was decent, if almost shamefully predictable. The acting on the other hand was just horrible. Disregard anyone else's opinion on this movie who thinks that the acting was anything better than dismal. With average acting this movie may have earned a rating of 5. As it is it's lucky to get a 3.

All I have to say is "What the heck kind of acting was that?" I liked the story itself, but I completely agree with all the other people about the acting. I could see that if the acting was better it would have been a great movie. There were times were I was a little scared. But seriously I had to watch the movie at 2 in the morning alone to be scared. Basically because of the acting. I kept thinking to myself "they are awful" I hope someone remakes this movie. I could be great. I cant believe they couldn't find better actors. Sheesh so disappointed. I wonder if I am being harsh or maybe just haven't watched enough movies but I just cant get over the acting.

I really cannot understand why anyone would want to watch this movie anywhere other than in a college film class as an example of how not to make a movie. The first ten minutes are nothing but narration. Even when characters are conversing, we are still told what they are saying instead of getting the information first hand. This continues throughout the movie.

My biggest problem is that everything lacks authenticity. The actors generally sound like they're reading from cue cards while improvising emotion. The editing jumps around. The story is also really bland. Shows like Ghost Adventures and A Haunting can tell stories like this in 60 minutes with commercials, so you can imagine how they try to stretch things out in this movie.

I think the only people who find this movie scary are people who scare too easily. Better suggestions: Poltergeist, Paranormal Activity, A Haunting in Connecticut.

Here's the story: A woman has brutally killed her family at home. The guy that just inherited the house is a little spooked by all the ghost stories, and wants it checked out. So he hires Carter Simms, a sort of ghost documentarian, to spend a few days in the house and gather evidence.

Sounds pretty ho-hum, huh? It isn't. This film gave me the willies. It's relatively low-budget - shot on video, and the first little bit of the film makes you think 'how can this be any good?' But trust me, this film had me seeing things in the shadows at the end of the hall before it was half over. NOT a film to watch alone at night in the suburbs. There's lots of 'little bits' of gore, and some absolutely unnerving ghost stuff. (I've got goosebumps just thinking about it).

This is a very well crafted film. As I said earlier, it's not big budget, but clearly everyone involved is VERY good at what they do. Good direction, cinematography and editing. The makeup and effects were top notch. Of special note, the lead actress (Patti Tindall) was excellent and super watchable. I hope we see more of her in the future. The rest of the cast were good as well, but the lead really gave the film depth and weight that made it that much more terrifying to watch.

Overall, the film did decently with setting up an atmosphere.

I do have a few points of critique: 1. Very repetitive background music. Those notes on the piano ended up bugging me a lot, since they were in every scary scene.

2. Other sound issues - some scenes very obviously had all sound cut, the film could've used a "noise" track so these scenes wouldn't stand out so much. There was *some* nice music scores, but I feel that starting them out at a lower volume (and keeping them lower) would've drawn less attention to them.

3. Some sequences - particularly the end - could've been shortened down a bit. With the fluff overall, I'd say the film could easily have been 20 minutes (and maybe even 30 minutes, if you're good at killing your darlings) shorter.

Overall, I'd say the film shows some nice ideas, and at times a good execution of said ideas.