I have to say director Steve Beck’s treatment “Thirteen Ghosts” is not as bad as everyone says it is. Every movie buff knows that this is a remake of the cult-classic directed by famous director William Castle. I found this to be a very good horror flick and a fun ghost thriller. The premise and concept of the movie are basically the same. The family is trapped in a big house with ghosts you can only see with special glasses. There are different entities and personalities for each ghost, my favorite would have to be the Juggernaut.
I thought the scenery and mood of the film is excellent the entire flick’s atmosphere is set up right from the beginning. The problem with this is that the makers of the movie speed through the story of the film and it doesn’t give us enough time to establish the characters for us to like them. A lot of the movie has obvious horror movie clichés that never seem to impress me. A lot of the ghosts that are shown have different personalities and origins, yet they only show about two of their origins. I would have also liked to learn more about the machine and the story of the ghosts assembly.
Otherwise an all around fun movie to watch with a bunch of people. The plot is a lot more intricate than you would think. It seems the house is not really a house, yet a machine that is powered by the 12 ghosts that are needed to open the “Eye of Hell”, the only problem is, they need one more ghost to complete the opening and help power it. Which is the thirteenth ghost? You’ll just have to watch and see. This is a pretty fun and creepy remake that, though, fails to even compare to the novelty, and sheer excitement of the original, is still entertaining in spite of its number of faults.