31 Days of Horror Movies: Thir13en Ghosts

While not a scholar or even a purist, I am somewhat of a film snob. Not a big fan of remakes, specifically when the originals don't need updating. It is therefore an unusual position I find myself in, preferring a remake to an original, and by leaps and bounds. Let's take a look at today's feature...

Thir13en Ghosts

Originally a quaint 1960 film from director William Castle, Thirteen Ghosts was re-imagined in 2001 by Robert Zemeckis, Joel Silver and Steve Beck as full-throttle exercise in terror. The film centers around the Kriticos family. Arthur Kriticos (Tony Shalhoub, before his Monk phenomena) inherits a large, modern house from his uncle, Cyrus (played by Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham). The house is contructed of a maze of glass walls and, it turns out, is a home to several ghosts.

Cyrus Kriticos was a ghost hunter, and his collection isn't comprised of Casper and his friends. Each of the ghosts have a story. A terrible, brutal story. And they're pissed-off at having been incarcerated within the glass walls of Cyrus' abode. Unfortunately, Arthur and his brood are trapped inside the house when the walls begin to move, and the ghosts are unleashed.

I can't express to you how terrifying the ghosts are in this movie, especially given how corporeal they appear to be. Whereas the William Castle original was more akin to a trip through the spook house at the county fair, the remake is like being in a nightmare from which you want desperately to awaken from. And, who knows, perhaps you won't?

Comments

Yesterday's Restaurants

The local newspaper has a feature from one of Champaign-Urbana's most legendary restaurateur's, John Katsinas, on what his favorite area restaurants were that have now since closed (or will soon be closing). It's a nice little read, and has made me stop and think about the restaurants that have come and gone that have left an indelible (and edible) impression on me throughout the years. Here we go....

Watching The Hours

A Twitter friend named Paula has asked for folks to submit ideas for a blog-a-thon about what we think will be the classic films of the future. In other words, what relatively recent movies (namely, from the 21st century), do we think will be considered classics in the decades to come, possibly airing on such venerable stations as Turner Classic Movies ? While a number of films come to mind for such a category, one in particular stood out from the rest, and thus is my entry for Paula's blog-a-thon.

She's Madonna

Today we're going to talk about something very important. We're going to talk about Madonna. "Madge," as she's affectionately known around the gay scene, has been making music for over thirty years. I grew up with her songs, many of them pop classics. In recent years, it can be arguably said that her popularity has waned a bit. During the past decade, Madonna has put out seventeen singles. Of those, three have charted in the US Top 40. Ten Failed to chart at all on the Billboard Hot 100. We now have at least one possibility offered as to why Madge's chart power is waning: Ageism. At least, that's what Diplo (just, Diplo), a producer of some of the tracks off her latest album, thinks . I know it's difficult to be objective about something you've worked on -- whether you were the producer or the artist -- but, as a listener/fan, I have to say that Madonna's most recent work has simply not been that good. Still, we'll hear what

Left to my own devices

Search This Blog