100 Ghost Street: The Return of Richard Speck

"100 Ghost Street" is a found footage paranormal flick from The Asylum. It is told through recovered documentary video footage retrieved from the stories set location. A team of paranormal researchers head out to record any phenomena where the infamous killer Richard Speck murdered several people. The film stars Jennifer Robyn Jacobs, Jim Shipley, Tony Besson, Jackie Moore, and Hayley Derryberry.

"100 Ghost Street" begins just as most of these found footage paranormal ghost stories do by setting up the story with video sequences that conveniently introduce the location and purpose of the visit. In this case a documentary investigating the paranormal activity at the scene of grisly murders committed by Richard Speck who along with his victims is said to still be haunting the location. There is nothing that really sticks out in this film as groundbreaking or original but it is a pretty good movie. The story is believable and comprehensible. The action begins almost immediately and convincingly. The special effects in this film is standard play in this subgenre and is done very well. There is plenty of gory death scenes and melodramatic acting from the cast. The scares are not so much instantaneous or shocking but the whole film is pretty entertaining.

There is really nothing in this film that stands out as nail biting or 'edge of your seat chills' but the film manages to keep you interested by showing a steady amount of action and drama. I actually found it to be a very enjoyable paranormal film that brought the blood and gore. The effects are not high end but they are better than a lot of the films in this subgenre of horror. If your looking for sudden chills or scare moments that make you jump then look elsewhere, but that aside it is a very good ghost story. The atmosphere is creepy, the location is dark and the story behind the paranormal activity is gruesome. I think any paranormal movie fan will be pleased to see this film.

" Richard Benjamin Speck (December 6, 1941 - December 5, 1991) was an American mass murderer who killed eight student nurses in their South Deering, Chicago, residence via stabbing, strangling, slashing their throats, or a combination of the three on the night of July 13-14, 1966. One victim was also raped prior to her murder. A ninth potential victim, student nurse Corazon Amurao, survived by hiding beneath a bed.

Shortly before December 5, 1991, Speck was transported from Stateville Correctional Center to Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet, Illinois after complaining of severe chest pains. Speck later died in the early morning hours of December 5, of what was believed to be a heart attack, one day shy of what would have been his 50th birthday. The coroner stated that Speck had an "enlarged heart, emphysema and clogged arteries" which most likely contributed to his fatal heart attack." - Wikipedia

I tried watching this movie a few times, but I kept getting distracted. I finally decided to look up who the Mass murderer was since I've never heard of him. Was after that point where I finally became interested and at least the beginning of the movie. Towards the middle of the movie, I lost interest again. The did catch my attention again. The acting was not bad, that is the reason I gave it a five.

I would not recommend this movie.

Like so many of these movies, it was made on a way to low of budget, with no talent whatsoever. The idea is sound, of course, lock a crew in a hospital, of course over night, of course with a ghost the loose, and of course nobody believes in ghosts. The acting was super horrible, the plot I liked, but the whining of the actors made me want to turn it off. Round and round in circles it felt this movie went, most of it wasn't believable but hey, these movies aren't supposed to win Academy Awards now are they? I wouldn't watch this movie if unless if you really had to, or if you are like and love these types of movies, its a definite watch!

The first rule of reviewing 'found footage' horror films is to take them for what they are. So, I review this in the context of the sub-genre only and not in the wider context of film generally.

The found footage genre is massively over-saturated with poor quality films. When done right, these films are fantastically scary (Blair Witch etc). I have watched over 30 of these films and, bearing in mind this film is only a year old, my only reaction is 'why was this film even made?'. It offers absolutely nothing new whatsoever, and trots out the same clichés as most other of these films (scary abandoned property, investigated at night, shaky camera work, annoying characters etc etc). Although it is no worse than many other found footage films, those other films came first and so it is up to newer films to expand on and develop the genre - this film totally fails to do that.

The one positive for me was that I thought the acting was a lot better than usual. I'm not talking about great acting as such, just appropriate acting for this type of film.

Yet another poor addition to the pool, for die-hard found footage fans only, and even those people will wonder why they bothered watching.

There's a good thing/bad thing dynamic to Instant Netflix, good in that all the dubious Asylum 'films' go on it before too long which means aside from the monthly fee, one doesn't have to spend a dime on this crap. The bad news is what you save in money, you lose in sanity. So a toss-up if you will.

This particular pile of excrement is one of the endless "found footage" movies that are as numerous as they are atrocious. A few friends go to the boarding house that Richard Speck murdered in half a century ago only to be stalked by a poltergeist. Yawn. Bad all the way around. The fact that its unwatchable is redundant as its an Asylum film.