A group that has found each other online likes to play a game where they go live in someone’s house as ghosts, not hurting anyone and not stealing anything. That is until something goes wrong.
Written by Adam Cesare and directed by Jill Gevargizian, Ghost Game is a bit generic with the story feeling familiar throughout the film which is unfortunate. Specifically, parts of it were so reminiscent of other movies, a Facebook post was made to find the title of one of them (The Edukators, from Germany, not horror, absolutely excellent). The story here is not terrible but it’s also not great, it’s just right in the middle, not moving the needle once through the whole film. Which is incredibly frustrating as a huge fan of Gevargizian’s previous work which was excellent. This one feels like perhaps with a different writer or an extra one brought in to add a bit of excitement, the film would have moved into good from just being there.
The cast here is also a bit on the bland side with some of them just not grabbing the viewers at the start. The performances are a bit uneven from there with some cast member managing to keep pretty bland while thankfully Emily Bennett comes in and saves the film. She does. Really. She’s the best part of the whole film, not only for the acting performances. She’s the reason to see this if you can get through the story with characters who aren’t exactly likable from the start. She’s magnetic and fantastic, she shows her talent and really does the most out of her part. Without her, it would have been a turn-off-out-of-sadness-and-disappointment film.
Another aspect that was a massive let down was the cinematography. In previous Gevargizian films, the cinematography was on point and done with care not just for the framing but also for the lighting. Ghost Game is, again, quite bland on this front and adds the crime of not using proper lighting quite often which leads to scenes where it’s hard to see what is going on that end up forcing the viewer to up the brightness on their screens (which is never ideal). The film lacks visual appeal.
Ghost Game may work for some, but for those who watch a ton of films, this will feel familiar from start to finish, leading to a frustrating watch knowing some of the talent involved. Emily Bennett saves the whole film, making it clear that the acting is not on par for the parts of the film she is not in. Most of the characters aren’t likeable people, kind of lacking in depth and interest beyond the fact that they are about to get in a house that might have some odd things going on. The house itself is pretty cool, but the house is not the only part of the film. Hopes were high for this film and were dashed pretty early on and never really retrieved at any point.