Le pentacle maudit

Well there is 85mins of my life that I will never get back. This really is the worst film I have ever seen (and I've seen Dragon Wars). Don't know why films like this get made. One of the "ghosts" from 1866 uses a box of safety matches to do some dirty work - very safety conscious them 1866 cowboys. Billy Drago is lookin sad and old these days and his scary persona has all but vanished in this one with the scary having to come from some (not so) special effects. All the kids are deeply annoying without a touch of acting ability between them and the set seems to be made from old food boxes - Avoid wasting a night of your life on this one NO STARS

Busload of annoyingly stereotypical teens, stranded in a ghost town inhabited by murderous outlaw poltergeists, attempt to survive their stay without "freaking out" while also solving the mystery behind their spooky surroundings. Jittery, witless low-budget thriller, barren of substantial ideas or honest scares. TV-buffs should enjoy seeing Gil Gerard again (playing the preacher), but the movie doesn't have an ounce of originality. The poor bus driver throws up motor oil in the most ludicrously-derived supernatural sequence (actually a quasi-steal from "Poltergeist II"), while the long-in-the-tooth students banter back and forth so vacuously that one is apt to sleep through "Ghost Town" without so much as a shudder. NO STARS from ****

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.

Well, this isn't a movie I would go and choose to rent and take home or purchase .... so kind of glad it was on free to air TV! The acting was ... well, they did the best they could with the script they had I guess! lol... Sorry to the writer - it could have been a lot better than it was - however the basic outline wasn't bad. The special effects (for the most part) and camera work made it watchable - but but is not a movie I would go 'oh yes I want to watch that again).... I am guessing that the cast and crew enjoyed the experience and the editing was well done - everything was pretty smoothly put together. It was what I would have expected of a B grade semi-horror/thriller movie... good effort guys... despite my comments - it was a reasonable way to pass a couple of hours (by the time free to air TV sticks in the adverts!).... :D

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!