Phantom' audit: Remake is senseless, not spooky, To call "Ghost" ridiculous is not the same thing as saying its awful (in spite of the fact that it is that, as well.) It's simply that it appears to be less inspired by terrifying you than in making you laugh.
In any event on that score it succeeds.
The spookiest thing about this pointless and unusually senseless redo of the 1982 phantom story is . . . a squirrel in the upper room. What's more, the best utilization of its 3-D is an injection of a squirrel trap, apparently jabbing out into the group of onlookers from a handyman shop counter. (This, in a motion picture where a tree springs up and grabs a youngster out of his bed. What a misuse of good FX.)As Count Floyd used to say on the old SCTV production "Beast Chiller Horror Theater": "Goody gumdrops, that is unnerving stuff, isn't it?"I'm not in any case beyond any doubt that "change" is the right word here. Coordinated by Gil Kenan (known for the Oscar-designated energized drama "Beast House") from a script by David Lindsay-Abaire, this "Ghost" feels less like a reboot of the first film than a smirkily humorous, DJ-style remix of its best-adored tropes.
The celebrated line "They're here"; the kid corresponding with the dead through a TV set, before getting sucked into the past, through the storage room; the chivalrous relative pursuing her toward the end of a tough rope, similar to some paranormal spelunker — every one of these components are sewed together, similar to music specimens, into an unrecognizable yet relentlessly self-referential soup, alongside the most old buzzwords from the contemporary frightfulness standard.
"Paranormal Activity"-style feature footage rubs up against that unpleasant child from the J-ghastliness fantastic "Ju-on: The Grudge." Animatronic skeletons out of "Privateers of the Caribbean" writhe in a "Treacherous"-style underworld. What's more, dark slime, obviously imported by the barrel from Amityville, N.Y., streams like water.
It likewise doesn't help that Sam Rockwell, as the father of the young lady who escapes, conveys each line like he's auditioning for the "Ghostbusters" reboot.
For no other explanation than to pander to cutting edge gatherings of people, Lindsay-Abaire has overhauled the story to consolidate enough innovative gadgetry to fill a Best Buy. An iPhone is utilized like an ectoplasmic Geiger counter. A camera-prepared automaton shows up, nearby GPS trackers and a warmth sensor.But the main beeping you'll hear will be your own particular B.S. indicator.
Playing the paranormal specialist Carrigan Burke, who lands to spare the day — and who, obviously, has an "Apparition Hunters"-style unscripted television show — Jared Harris conveys what turns out to be, unexpectedly, the most clever line in the film. "Everything else bodes well?" he asks, mockingly, after Rockwell's father has communicated distrust about Carrigan's numbskull hypothesis that a gap in the drywall is an entryway between this world and the following, "yet I'm loaded w
In any event on that score it succeeds.
The spookiest thing about this pointless and unusually senseless redo of the 1982 phantom story is . . . a squirrel in the upper room. What's more, the best utilization of its 3-D is an injection of a squirrel trap, apparently jabbing out into the group of onlookers from a handyman shop counter. (This, in a motion picture where a tree springs up and grabs a youngster out of his bed. What a misuse of good FX.)As Count Floyd used to say on the old SCTV production "Beast Chiller Horror Theater": "Goody gumdrops, that is unnerving stuff, isn't it?"I'm not in any case beyond any doubt that "change" is the right word here. Coordinated by Gil Kenan (known for the Oscar-designated energized drama "Beast House") from a script by David Lindsay-Abaire, this "Ghost" feels less like a reboot of the first film than a smirkily humorous, DJ-style remix of its best-adored tropes.
The celebrated line "They're here"; the kid corresponding with the dead through a TV set, before getting sucked into the past, through the storage room; the chivalrous relative pursuing her toward the end of a tough rope, similar to some paranormal spelunker — every one of these components are sewed together, similar to music specimens, into an unrecognizable yet relentlessly self-referential soup, alongside the most old buzzwords from the contemporary frightfulness standard.
"Paranormal Activity"-style feature footage rubs up against that unpleasant child from the J-ghastliness fantastic "Ju-on: The Grudge." Animatronic skeletons out of "Privateers of the Caribbean" writhe in a "Treacherous"-style underworld. What's more, dark slime, obviously imported by the barrel from Amityville, N.Y., streams like water.
It likewise doesn't help that Sam Rockwell, as the father of the young lady who escapes, conveys each line like he's auditioning for the "Ghostbusters" reboot.
For no other explanation than to pander to cutting edge gatherings of people, Lindsay-Abaire has overhauled the story to consolidate enough innovative gadgetry to fill a Best Buy. An iPhone is utilized like an ectoplasmic Geiger counter. A camera-prepared automaton shows up, nearby GPS trackers and a warmth sensor.But the main beeping you'll hear will be your own particular B.S. indicator.
Playing the paranormal specialist Carrigan Burke, who lands to spare the day — and who, obviously, has an "Apparition Hunters"-style unscripted television show — Jared Harris conveys what turns out to be, unexpectedly, the most clever line in the film. "Everything else bodes well?" he asks, mockingly, after Rockwell's father has communicated distrust about Carrigan's numbskull hypothesis that a gap in the drywall is an entryway between this world and the following, "yet I'm loaded w
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