During the first scene of Thirteen Ghosts, in the junk yard, it looked like F. Murray Abrham’s character, Cyrus, died. It looked to me like he got partially decapitated.
Anyway, near the end of the movie, he showed up again, looking to me like he was alive and in the flesh. In any case, he didn’t look or act anything like the other (very cool looking) ghosts.
So did he die and come back as a ghost? Did he not really die? Did he fake his death? Did somebody else who looked like F. buy it in the junk yard?
I was gonna go back and rewatch some of the significant scenes, but my wife took the movie back to the store. Some stupid issue she has with late fees. :rolleyes:
And as neat as the special effects in this flick were, I really didn’t like the movie enough to plunk a couple dollars plus whatever my late fee is down on the counter.
Okay first point, Thirteen Ghosts was a terrible movie. Secondly I realized the same thing. The movie does not explain how Cyrus comes “back from the dead.” However I do not think he was a ghost, because if I’m not mistaken he is killed by the ghosts at the end. Other than that I cannot answer your question, but I am glad I’m not the only one who saw that.
Thirteen Ghosts suffered much production studio butchery. I saw this movie at the theater and I noticed significant signs of heavy editing, namely in the opening junkyard scene.
This could have been a good movie, but it was total crap. FWIW there are a few good jolts in it, and the visuals of the house are very unique.
As for the Q about the F. Murray Abraham character…
I took it as he faked his own death, but there’s evidence to point that he did in fact die. I’m lost as you. Im guessing the studio fucked up in the editing room, as noted above.
What I couldn’t figure out was: If he faked his own death, if just to trick his nephew into becoming a sacrifice (Or something), why was he wandering around with a torn shirt and (fake?) blood all over him?
Well, the cinematography wasn’t bad, at least.
Ranchoth
(And how were the flares supposed to work? Ghost citronella?)
Whoa! This movie was REALLY bad. I generally like horror movies, and I’ll put up with a certain amount of cheesiness, but WTF?! This was beyond ridiculous. About F. Murray…I took it as he faked his death, since the flare-lady apparently was secretly in cahoots with him the whole time. But why the torn shirt & blood when he shows up at the end? Who knows? And how did this flare-lady get in the house, anyway? Why was she freaking out at the psychic-guy for trapping the ghosts when she was in on it from the beginning? Why bother with this “She’s not what she seems!” plot twist in the first place?
Why lure the nephew into being a sacrifice? What exactly was this supposed to accomplish? And wasn’t Cyrus the sacrifice in the end, anyway? Yet the super-duper ghost machine just blew up. Huh? It bothers me that I am even bothering to nit-pick this movie, but I just watched it tonight, and was completely pissed, as I was hoping for at least a halfway-scary flick. It was just too ridiculous to be scary. The ghosts looked good, don’t get me wrong, but what the heck was the point of them? Obviously they have issues; why? I would have been more interested if the ghosts had personalities, bt instead they’re just sort of…there. Yeah, they’re trying to kill people, big deal. Does anyone have any backstory on the ghosts? They look interstingly creepy. And what’s with the guy with the railroad spikes in his face? Is he supposed to be Pinhead, or something? What’s the deal with this? I feel that I miss out on a lot of stuff in movies like this by virtue of not having a DVD player.
The nephew realized he faked his death when he saw him in without the glasses, and then confronted him. And the chick he was working with talked about the whole thing before he crushed her (which was totally grituitous…but then again, so was the whole movie). So it was talked about, just nobody really cared.
I got the impression after watching this movie that a bunch of horror makeup artists and special effect guys got together, brought in a few kegs, and started making stuff and saying “wouldn’t this look cool in a movie?” Then some director came along, got his 5-year old to put together a script, and got some camera operators to film it.
The F. Murray Abraham character has to be alive; otherwise, that brings the total up to fourteen ghosts, right? Presumably, the bloody shirt and all that was not to fool the characters but to fool the audience into thinking he was dead – a cheap cinematic device. The filmmakers wanted viewers to think we knew who all 13 ghosts were, but the 13th ghost turns out to be the psychic character who dies in the final reel and then comes back to help out.
Oddly enough I rented this dog of a movie on Saturday as well. The script was bad and they left too much unexplained. The DVD has a section which explains all of the ghost’s stories though, and that was kinda interesting. Who knows why the flares worked, and by the time Cyrus came back I was so bored to tears that it didn’t matter. The movie wasn’t scary and didn’t make me jump once. Major disappointment.
That said…
Who was the angry princess? Whoa. All I can say is whoa. She was very soft on the eyes. I mean aside from being hacked up and all. Has she done any other work?
No, the 13th ghost was supposed to be the nephew who was supposed to sacrifice himself in order to save his family.
When the psychic guy died, did he become allergic to himself? (since he’d go into seizures if a ghost was nearby)
BTW, I actually enjoyed the movie. It didn’t qualify as a ‘scary’ movie in my book, but I liked the technology behind capturing the ghosts (a mixture of old things like spells and wards and new things like ectoglass and ghost specs.
So, what are the stories about the ghosts? I don’t have a DVD player, and I’m going to have to watch this movie again with my b/f, as he has not seen it, and will not listen to me when I tell him it is crap. I think I will like it more if I know more about the ghosts. can anyone help me out?
The machine needed thirteen specific ghosts to feed it, sorta like ingredients in a recipe. Cyrus had the wrong kind of “psychic energy” which was what made the mixture volatile. I had the misforture of seeing this movie in the theater with the volume turned up to maximum. The only good thing I can say about this assault on the ears is that it wasn’t as bad as Resident Evil.
Thanks so much for the ghost backstories- they were a lot more interesting than the movie itself. I’m trying to decide whether Matthew Lillard is funny or incredibly annoying. I know he does a lot of “teen” movies, which is strike against him already, but I actually didn’t mind him in 13 Ghosts. F. Murray’s role was pretty lame, and Tony Shalhoub just does not, IMO, have the talent necessary to carry a main character role. He’s wonderful as a quirky sidekick, but a leading man, he’s not.
BTW, did anyone see Resident Evil, and should I bother?
Well, I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed this discrepancy. Sad. This could’ve been a really cool movie. The premise was kind of neat and I really liked the special effects. Aw well.
I agree. Her name is Shawna Loyer and from what I could gather at the Internet Movie Data Base, Thirteen Ghosts is her first movie. Hopefully we’ll see more of her in the future.