Ghostkeepers

IMDb
The cast of a horror movie reunites to celebrate their success and get more than they bargained for in Marlowe House. Can they survive a horrifying night of Ghosts, Demonic Possessions, Murder and REVENGE?


HorrorSociety

When I get a new movie to review I always try to keep an open mind regardless of what kind of film it is. I typically don’t like ghost flicks but I really want to.  Ghost stories can be terrifying if done properly but I have only seen a few flicks actually pull it off.  When I am sent a ghost flick to review it is usually a bitter sweet experience.

I know the ghost film will never meet my expectations but something deep down fills me with hope.  Recently, I got a few flicks from my friends over at Chemical Burn and Reality Entertainment and the film Ghostkeepers: Welcome to the House Where Evil Was Born was one of them.  Try to say that one five times fast.  Anyway, the film did not look that entertaining but I tried to keep an open mind.

**Spoiler Alert**The film follows an internet podcaster and his sassy tech as they plan a night of terror with two cast members of a classic horror film, The House Where Evil Was Born, and a medium.  They meet in the location where the film was made, the infamous Marlowe House.  It was in this very home that the director killed himself and rumor has it that it was the spirits in the house that made him do it.  Once the group arrives strange things begin to happen and the medium picks up strong vibes.  Also, the tech starts to relive memories from her past.

When she was a child her and her mother moved into a new home  While there a strange entity lived in her closet and terrorized her for 6 months before her mother sent her to live with her grandmother.  The group holds a seance and discover that the young boy that lived in the tech’s closet actually lived in the Marlowe house and a masked man kidnapped him and locked him in the closet of the new house where he died.  They also discover that the reason the director killed himself was because he had a secret homosexual relationship with one of the married stars of the film.  The star called it off sending him over the edge.**Spoiler Alert**

I try not to use this phrase in my reviews because it can really piss off the director and production team behind behind htem but this film really calls for it.  I was really disappointed with this film. The film had the potential to make one kickass ghost story but the team behind it let it just sizzle out instead of keep feeding the fire like more filmmakers.  The film started out with great atmosphere and planted the foundation for the story perfectly only to pull the rug out from underneath it forcing the film to fall flat on it’s face.

The acting in this one is great.  The entire cast, with the exception of Pawlowski, did a great job.  Sadly, Pawlowski’s role was forced and his character really brought the film down.  The story had the potential but just did not go the distance.  It seemed like the writer or writersstarted out with a great idea but could not follow through.  Once the film hits the halfway mark it goes downhill for sure.  In fact, this film was the most anti-climatic flick I have ever seen.

Finally, those looking for special effects and on screen kills will not find either here.  The film has no deaths, no special effects to accompany them, and no real horror elements at all other than the small ghost angle.  Overall, this film will disappoint anyone that watches it.  The film starts out promising and but falls short of the finish line.  I do not recommend this one.

Fangoria

Last year, writer-director Anthony D.P. Mann released TERROR OF DRACULA, a painstakingly respectful enactment of Bram Stoker’s often-bowdlerized and bastardized 1897 novel. TERROR perfectly captured the restrained pacing and hazy photography of a BBC production from decades past, and the result felt like something that might have aired stateside on public television around Halloween—a powerful fount of nostalgia for some, this reviewer included. With follow-up THE GHOSTKEEPERS set for release this year, Mann’s challenge was to try and carve out a similar impression, only now with his own original material and in a modern setting.

GHOSTKEEPERS set-up has a teenage horror podcaster, his intrepid sound engineer, and a local psychic hosting a cast reunion for cult film ‘The House Where Evil Was Born’ at the original shooting location, Marlowe House. The impetus behind the get-together is to record a live podcast episode while faded celebrity Victor Brimstone (Mann) and his former on-and-off screen leading lady recount the gory details behind the ‘Evil’ shoot at the foreboding house, including their director’s eventual suicide. Later, night falls and things go bumping as the painful secret trapped within Marlowe House’s walls looks to conduct a revival of its own…

As the plot summary no doubt reveals, the genetics behind THE GHOSTKEEPERS are obvious—namely, sedate supernatural spookers of the past like THE HAUNTING or THE CHANGELING (in fact, THE CHANGELING’S ball-down-the-stairs gag is copped here wholesale). The inherent problem that topples many a movie that teeters along an eerie, less-is-more tightrope like those earlier classics is this: whatever crucial bubble of terror that the film works so hard to generate pops resoundingly once fleeting, suggestive scares develop into contrived backstories, spates of draggy verbiage kill the momentum, or a close-up of an actor sporting phony white pancake makeup is inserted. GHOSTKEEPERS commits all three of these sins at different points. Granted, these events are usually necessary at some point in order to move the story along to some degree of resolution, but the potential for scares is drained away. Several of the film’s earlier jumps are startling; a sheet yanked sharply from off of a chair, an indistinct silhouette thumping up against a window of pebbled glass. Once the plot progresses and the film’s financial limitations rear up with overlong scenes of dialogue munching away the running time, that aura of fright is well and truly lost, and it’s a shame.

The cast is decent enough and works well together, but there’s an opportunity that feels missed in the case of Victor Brimstone. It seems counter-intuitive that as both writer and director, Mann would give himself short shrift in terms of Brimstone screen time, and yet his appearance is fairly scant. It’s to the detriment of the film, as Brimstone’s theatrical affectations are very entertaining (loved the doorknob bit) and his posh English accent is airtight (as opposed to Barry Yuen as the Marlowe House caretaker, sounding like he’s channeling a grizzled gold prospector by way of the Louisiana bayous).

THE GHOSTKEEPERS is a serviceable paranormal excursion that manages to knock out some real chills before being defused by too much divulging and definition. Not quite up to the standard set by TERROR OF DRACULA, the mystery of Marlowe House still emerges as something worth taking the time to investigate.

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