The remake of the ’60s William Castle film is a bit of a dud, with a confusing plot and wooden performances, but is slightly redeemed through its top tier monster makeup effects.
Welcome to Reb00t! A series where I dig deep through the 2000’s to find all the horror remakes that we were inundated with over that weirdly bleak decade. Sometimes they’ll be good, sometimes they’ll be terrible, sometimes they’ll be great. In a few, rare times, they’ll be better than the original! These are all my personal views, obviously, so feel free to tell me I’m insane in the comments.
This week we’re diving into 2001’s Thir13en Ghosts!
Will it be as rad as I remember after my first viewing as a preteen? Or as mediocre as I remember watching it in college? Little bit of column A, a little bit of column B.
Thir13en Ghosts (Last time I’m spelling it like that) is a remake of the 1960’s William Castle picture, 13 Ghosts. For those who don’t know William Castle, or his overall effect on the horror genre, Castle was specifically known for his “event” films; he would routinely produce films that would have some sort of physical gag or showpiece that would be presented in the actual theater. He had electric shocks installed into theater seats and actors planted in the audience for his film The Tingler, and had a skeleton on a wire hover above the audience for The House On Haunted Hill. (This won’t be the last time I discuss William Castle; there’s a reason why many of the remakes of this era came from a production company called “Dark Castle”).
13 Ghosts was no different. The big technological selling point to get butts in seats was 3D. Each of the 13 ghosts would have their time to shine in the 3rd dimension, reaching out to the audience with their ghostly appendages. It was a hell of a gag at the time, and played like gangbusters to a sold out crowd.
But, how is it as a film? Kinda terrible! The real thing on display here is the tech, so story takes a pretty distant back seat. This is essentially 90 minutes of “oh, here comes the next ghost! Get those 3D goggles on, kids!”. Its still fun enough in a crowd, but it’s barely a film when actually watched with intent.
So, 41 years later, released 6 weeks after 9/11, Thirteen Ghosts hits the scene, with an updated color palette, and all the era’s trappings. So, is it any good?
Kinda! There’s a whole lot of stuff that does not work here, even carrying over some of the issues of the original, but it is also a pretty rad showcase of make-up effects that don’t really exist anymore in the digital world.
Thirteen Ghosts follows the same basic structure as the original; a young family inherits a house filled with 12 ghosts, all of them intent on making a 13th. What the 2001 remake adds to the plot is convoluted, to say the least. There is now an evil scientist/ghost hunter uncle ( F. Murray Abraham) who collected said 12 ghosts in his insane, Lament Configuration looking mansion, all in the service of powering a clock designed by the devil. If that sounds both cool and confusing, that’s about right! We’re never really given any sort of explanation to why he is building said clock, and what he intends to do with it, beyond just “human advancement”. It all looks real cool, but makes absolutely zero sense.
What this also inherits from the original, unfortunately, is the blank slate of a family. Even with a tragic backstory and Tony Shalhoub playing the patriarch, everyone is kinda just there, no deeper emotions or characterization beyond “look at how cool this house is” and “ghosts? Are you crazy?!”. Even with the whole dead mom angle, which is admittedly explored pretty uniquely here with the whole “Ghost Number 4” thing, it never plays for anything than a trope for the family, as they try to survive her loss in word alone.
The kids (played by Alec Roberts and every boy in ‘99 crush Shannon Elizabeth) are such nonentities here, that they straight up disappear for almost the entirety of the 2nd act, and you know what? Good chance you won’t even realize it until they show back up in the last 5 minutes.
Honestly, the only characters that do work here are side characters. F Murray Abraham is having a lot of fun playing a narcissistic evil scientist, Matthew Lillard dials up his twitchiness to 1000 as a cracked out psychic, and Embeth Davidtz shows up as a Ghost Rights Activist who is the only capable and efficient person in group (which is why it both sucks and is real weird when she does the double cross).
There’s a lot that doesn’t work here, of course, but what does work? The vibe, man; The vibe. If you’re anything like me, the very specific mood of these late ’90s, early ‘00s films hit like crack. Everything is dark and sinister, with most of the locations looking like the set of a Marilyn Manson video. There’s a very, very specific type of edge to these films, something like “Nu-Metal Horror”, that honestly only lasted for like 3 or 4 years, before the horror of 9/11 shifted the genre from dark but edgy to dark and mean.
What makes that look work, especially here, is the makeup effects. Like the original, the real star of the show isn’t the plot or characters; it’s the effects! And Thirteen Ghosts really brings the thunder with its ghost designs. Each of the 12 ghosts are incredibly unique in their look, each of them pulled from different nightmares. Everyone will have their favorites, from the Hellraiser inspired spiked and studded “The Hammer”, to the zombified gargantuan convict “The Juggernaut”, to the tortured, cage wearing witch “The Jackal”, or the upsetting mix and match of the “The Dire Mother & The Great Child”. My favorite is honestly “The First Born Son”, aka the boy with the arrow in his head. To this day, I find him creepy as all hell, how he just appears in the background, staring, with his tomahawk and bloodied arrow headdress.
Listen, is this good? No, not really. It’s structured to showcase the ghosts, but really only 2 or 3 of them ever get any screen time, and the central family is just a dud. There are definitely moments of where the film comes alive, especially in the few moments where it really dives into the lore, but for the most part, it’s a bit of a slog.
For those who grew up watching it, I think there is still enough meat on the bone for an entertaining evening. For those who haven’t, I’d put this under either “for completionists only” or “great to have on in the background, but not good for a dedicated watch”.
