31.8.08

My Favorite Horror Flick: Thir13en Ghosts

I am not a fan of horror flicks. I am more of an I am Sam type of movie lover. In layman's term feel good movies. :) Goes with my sunshiney character. There are only a few scary movies I like and on the top of the list is: Thir13en Ghosts. I can watch this over and over again. It never ceased to amuse and yeah, scare me. The plot is somewhat surprising in the end although I've expected that the invitation for the main characters to stay in the glass house is a decoy. Eeeer, spoiler!

Overview: The movie opens with ghost hunter Cyrus Kriticos with his asst. Dennis (actor Matthew Lillard; remember Scooby Doo's bestfriend?) in a junkyard trying to catch the bad ass ghost "The Jaggernaut" (he's the one who scares the shit out of me everytime!). Many of Cyrus' men was killed and his throat also slashed. They were however able to entrap the ghost. The story then shifts to Cyrus' nephew Arthur (Tony Shaloub of Monk) who could be seen in the kitchen I'm not sure if he's reading a newspaper but I remember him on the phone with his uncles' lawyer telling him that his uncle Cyrus left him his house as inheritance. He took it as a blessing as he tried to desperately make ends meet since his wife died in a fire accident. So the next day his whole family moved to the "glass house". When they got to the mansion Dennis was also there pretending to be a power company employee and together they stepped in the house. They were awed by the priceless artifacts in the house as well as the movable and strangely shifting glass walls and floor inscribed with Latin phrases. So fast forward they soon discovered that the nice house was actually a house of terror. Dennis upon checking the basement and discovering that the ghosts Cyrus' entrapped before are still there warned Arthur about his uncle's deadly obsession. Arthur only believed him when a ghost (the jackal) attacked his daughter Kathy (Shannon Elizabeth of American Pie). His uncle's lawyer Ben was also there for the house tour but when they caught him stealing cash he went crazy and activated a mechanism that automatically sealed the house entrapping everyone and released the ghosts one by one. He died when one of the ghosts (Angry Princess) attacked him and when he tried to back off in one doorway, it snaps close and cut him in 2. When Arthur's kids mysteriously disappeared in the house he and Dennis teamed up to find them, armed with special goggles (that lets them see the invisible ghosts) and detachable walls (with latin phrases inscribed on them that shields and protects them from ghosts attack). They were saved from one ghost by Kalina O. who introduced herself as a spirit liberator. She then enlightened them of Cyrus' original plan that shocked Arthur. She disclosed that the house is actually a giant machine who's purpose is to open up a portal called "Ocularis Infernum" or eye of hell, which when done successfully allows its owner to see into the future. To achieve this it needs 13 ghosts, and the mansion already houses 12. It just only needs one and final ghost to complete the ritual. Not knowing that Cyrus is still alive and Kalina is actually his secret parter and lover they believed what she said..that if the 13th ghost dies as a sacrifice for pure love, the system will fail and shut down. In reality it will do the opposite and actually trigger the machine. Kalina dies when Cyrus betrayed her and the dynamic duo tries again to save the kids. It ends up with Dennis dying with a broken back when he got attacked by2 powerful ghosts (the Hammer&Jaggernaut). One of the saddest and most touching part of the story was when Arthur discovered that one of the ghosts is his wife, Jean. It was the 1st time he ever saw him after she died.
Moving on, Arthur then finds his kids finally. They were in the center of a dangerous sharp razor circling thingy, then Cyrus held Arthur at knife-point persuading (or more like forcing) him to jump in the deadly whirring razors for his kids. When he is about to that's when they got saved by their nanny Maggie when she broke down the control system and destroys the ghost summon tape leading to system breakdown. The ghosts then turned their anger towards Cyrus and killed him. Arthur then saves his children by leaping to the machine, with the help of Dennis' ghost. The glass house's walls then shattered to pieces releasing all ghosts including his wife's. It was sad when he and his kids finally had to say goodbye to his wife Jean. The movie ended with a dramatic and comedic resignation from their nanny Maggie.

So there! Watch it! And oh, the other thing I loved when I watched this movie is when the 12 ghosts were introduced. It was pretty scary and got my armhairs (eek!) raising. Check out wikipedia for complete details and to know the story behind their physique and characters as defined by their "death history". Here are the ghosts:

1. The First Born Son - is the ghost of a little boy who looks relatively normal – except for the arrow spiked through the middle of his forehead.
2. The Torso - wrapped in cellophane, he trundles through the basement accompanied by his decapitated head.
3. The Bound Woman-was a pretty cheerleader who was strangled on a prom date gone bad.
4. The Withered Lover - is the ghost of Jean (Arthur's wife) who perished in a fire. With half of her face and hands horribly burned and scarred, Jean wears a hospital gown and pulls an IV drip behind her.
5. The Torn Prince - is the ghost of a teenager who was wiped out in a car accident, he is quite handsome when viewed from the left, but the entire right side of his body and face are dramatically ripped and shredded, the result of his lethal road rash.
6. The Angry Princess - is the most subtlely disturbing of the ghosts. A young woman who committed suicide. She is completely nude, gashed from head to toe and drained of all blood.
7. The Pilgrimess - Accused of witchcraft, she was sentenced to die from exposure and the abuse of her fellow townspeople. In the afterlife, she is permanently locked in wooden stocks.
8. & 9. The Great Child and The Dire Mother - the demented mother manipulated her giant-sized baby in an attempt to create a monster son who would be capable of carrying out her elaborate revenge fantasies. The duo is comprised of a heavyset man wearing only an enormous diaper and a vomit-covered bib over his prodigious stomach, and a tiny woman whose aged and peeling face stands out in grotesque contrast to her girlish outfit and pony-tailed hair.
10. The Hammer - is the bloodthirsty spirit of a murderous blacksmith. His ghostly incarnation features spikes and nails embedded in his head and body, a large hammer bolted to his wrist in place of a hand, and chains enveloping his torso.
11. The Jackal - whose crazed face with its yellow eyes and deadly sharp fangs peers out through a rusty metal cage that has been locked around his head. An escapee from a turn-of-the-century lunatic asylum, this feral, hunched-over creature also sports a hideous set of lethally long claws.
12. The Juggernaut - is the most lethal ghost who died in a hail of bullets. As a result, in the afterlife his body is riddled with bullet holes from head to toe.
13. Willing Sacrifice

Nos. 10-12 are the ultimate angas ghosts! Haha! Just watch it. Enjoy. :)
* The Black Zodiac and the 12 ghosts. Waaaah!

* actual movie scene. Waaaah sama sama pa sila!

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