The 13 Ghosts remake, playfully titled Thir13en Ghosts, is a challenging movie to rate. It’s a tight 90-minutes of campy, extremely 2000s filmmaking. It’s also a horror movie that’s not scary at all, with an objectively dreadful script. So what should I do with that? I guess it’s really all in that title: a silly leetspeak rendering of a cult classic gimmick movie. At the time, I could understand critics ripping into 13 Ghosts. But now? Now it’s a nostalgic link to the days when I would have maybe rented something like this for a sleepover.
This story begins with a bang, as we meet ghost hunter Cyrus Kriticos (F. Murray Abraham) and his psychic assistant Dennis (Matthew Lillard) in the process of capturing a ghost in a junkyard. You know, I’ve seen a lot of junkyards in movies and TV shows but I have no idea where they are in real life and if they actually look like this, with the infinitely tall stacks of crushed cars. Anyway, two ghost rights activists try to interfere and in the ensuing chaos one of them, a bunch of goons, and Cyrus himself are killed. Dennis stares down the ghost in his containment cell and as we fade to black, he’s left to wonder about Cyrus’ cryptic last words about needing to just one more ghost…
Sometime later, an estate lawyer (JR Bourne) arrives at the cramped home of widower Arthur Kriticos (Tony Shalhoub), Cyrus’ nephew. Six months ago, Arthur’s wife died in a fire, leaving Arthur financially insecure and despondent in trying to raise his two children, young adult Kathy (Shannon Elizabeth) and impetuous preteen Bobby (Alec Roberts). The estate lawyer informs Arthur that he’s inherited Cyrus’ mansion and invites the family to go visit it. So Arthur, the kids, and live-in nanny Maggie (Rah Digga) make the two-hour drive to go see what could be their new home. When they get there, they are immediately intercepted by a jumpsuited Dennis who tries to pass himself off as a electrician and everyone just goes with it. Arthur puts a crazy key into a magic panel and the house springs to life. Unperturbed, the six living souls enter the home.
The production design of Thir13en Ghosts is as amazing as the idea that normal people would walk into this space and want to be there. It’s all glass walls etched in some sort of magic script, and yet the everyone seems taken in by this obvious murderous puzzle box. Arthur tries to get some alone time with the lawyer to talk about his options as far as selling the house, but in that time his family can’t resist splitting up and getting into trouble. You see, they’re not the only people in the house this dark and stormy night… there are also 13 ghosts! They just don’t realize it yet because they don’t have their special glasses.
After reading John’s review of the original, I was pleased to see how much importance was put on ghost glasses in this movie. Through them we learn the identities of the ghosts, which seem just as arbitrary and superficial this time around, with one with her head in a cage, one with railroad spikes all over his body, and, of course, a titty ghost. They’ve all been brought here for some special reason but I didn’t really understand that part of the movie. What I did get was that Matthew Lillard’s manic performance as an overwhelmed psychic was a lot of fun, as was the bizarre choice of bringing in Tony Shalhoub as the leading man. Thir13en Ghosts is an interesting haunted house movie, and if you think what I’ve described here sounds even the slightest bit entertaining, I say check it out! It’s the best kind of bad.