The Ghostmaker

I'll first say that THE GHOSTMAKER isn't an original film at all. The premise seems to be a toss up between FLATLINERS and THE ASPHYX, with the narrative incorporating elements of FINAL DESTINATION and GHOST along the way. The special effects have clearly been inspired by those in THE FRIGHTENERS. Other than that, this is a surprisingly good little movie.

I wasn't expecting much from this, I admit, having had my fingers burnt too many times by the glut of boring, repetitive and clichéd teen horror films out there. Most of them involve a group of kids being bumped off by a maniac, but THE GHOSTMAKER actually has some intelligence behind it in the story of a trio of guys who find a clockwork coffin that has the power to temporarily transform them into ghosts.

The plotting isn't great, as things end up on a smaller scale basis than you'd expect, and there are some clichés here. But at the same time the character development is pretty intriguing, and the acting is acceptable for the genre. The special effects are actually pretty good given what must have been a tiny budget to work with. Not a film to blow you away but one well worth checking out for the horror fans among us.

I bought this dvd for the effects. I wasn't disappointed. OK, that's a tick. And the ghosts are creepy, not to mention the Ghostmaker him-creepy-self. This movie needed a few more lessons on tension and building horror. It's on the way there, but not quite nailing it. The actors are good, young. I'd not be surprised if the film makers were young too. I think that's where the downer is coming in. So much is wrapped up in the manic teenage hormones that the movie doesn't have the time to just settle down and make us frightened. It definitely has some very cool ingredients to do that, but seems to lack enough time. Everything is a bit rushed. That's my take. I'm still glad I bought the dvd. The wizard effects will find good company in my sci-fi collection, some of the soundtrack was cool, and I definitely enjoyed the movie, even if I didn't really break a sweat over death come knocking.

If cool ideas or concepts would be the only indicator or rating barometer, we would talking a whole different ball game right now. But we are not, because the execution of said idea should at least be good too. Talking about good and involving anything that is shown in this movie would be a travesty. I can't judge the actors by one performance (or rather I don't want to), but they're not really helping the case delivered with this movie.

Don't get me wrong, the whole thing is half hearted at best. The script seems to be incomplete, the characters are shallow at best and the twists are funny, if you're good humored. The effects could be called OK I guess, but only by very low budget standards. In other words: You can smell the CG miles before it hits the screen. If you can't watch things like that, don't even bother. A shame, because it did sound interesting ... which brings us back to square one!

I got to watch "The Ghostmaker" for the second time now, and must admit that I could only vaguely remember fragments from the movie from the first time around.

But I have to say that the movie just wasn't much better actually the second time around. Sure, it has some good aspects here and there, I will get to those in a bit, but in overall then this just was a less than mediocre foray into the horror / thriller genre.

"The Ghostmaker" is about a some friends who stumble upon an ancient coffin from the 15th century, which turns out to be an intricate machine that can project a person into a ghost-like incorporeal state. And what seems to be fun and games soon turn out to have deadly consequences.

The concept idea of this machine is actually interesting, and it is apparently based on some real idea, nay fantasy idea of some long dead inventor.

However, the storyline just wasn't impressive enough to make "The Ghostmaker" a particularly enjoyable horror movie. Why? Well, because it was so predictable that it hurt. You knew what would happen long before it did, and you could see what would be the result of things in the movie a mile away.

The acting in the movie was fairly good, and people did perform adequately with their given roles, despite having a fairly generic script and storyline to work with.

The reaper figure was actually interesting, especially since it was tied to the coffin and had machinery parts to it as well. That was actually a great touch of detail and concept idea that worked out quite well. However, it just wasn't much of a menacing presence.

And as for the special effects in the movie, well the special effects team actually managed to pull off the effects quite nicely and also in a believable manner. And that lifted up the movie quite a bit.

"The Ghostmaker" is certainly a watchable movie, you just shouldn't expect to be blown away by it. I am rating it four out of ten stars because it just isn't an outstanding or a particularly memorable movie. And as for it being a horror movie, then it just lacks to muster a punch that makes you take notice.

After acquiring the coffin of a 15th-century mathematician who cheated death, a group of friends' slowly find the drawbacks to it's continued usage when they start crossing the line far more frequently and violently.

There's not a whole lot to this one that really works, and it tends to get off-track quite often. The biggest problem with this one is the fact that the whole film is dependent on the idea of using this strange device being something that's terrifying or creepy, but instead none of what goes on here is really all that creepy or scary. Being astral projected into the area and witnessing events as a spectral being is not in the slightest bit scary a concept, and these scenes doing this are some of the blandest, more arduous scenes in the film with absolutely nothing going on that's in any way interesting to watch. It's so difficult to get through these since none of them are played off with the intent of being creepy or scary, just more of a curiosity by the discoverers which is so far removed from the intent of a horror film that it ends up becoming quite painful to sit through these with almost nothing of any value going on here and being so long into the film that when it finally gets going it's almost the final act which is quite a bit of time to get things going. There's a big difference in the way the action of what goes on in these scenes being far more enjoyable and entertaining overall since something's actually going on for once, as the endless chasing being done trying to get back his girlfriend makes for some rather chilling moments with the house battle, making effective use of the poltergeist stage for a chilling moment before settling back into action with the encounter in the gym which works quite well in putting his ghostly state to full-effect while forcing his smarts to come into play in finally being able to confront the menace. While not the greatest ploy, the tactic of putting the ghostly guardian of the coffin along for the ride does make for a fine sense of chilling atmosphere by having something to be scared of during the more boring sequences and it gets a lot of play in the finale which helps that as well, and helps this out quite well even with the slew of problems on display within.

Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Brief Nudity and drug use.