Lucky 13

We had a different movie planned for this night, but the disc was cracked. Always check as soon as they arrive! So we dug around in our Netflix streaming list and found Thir13en Ghosts (2001), a modern remake of the William Castle schlock-fest.

It starts in a junkyard, with F. Murray Abraham hunting a ghost. He has a gang of goons and twitchy psychic Matthew Lillard to help. Things get out of hand and the ghost gets trapped, but F. gets killed.

We now meet Tony Shaloub, his wife, and two kids, moving into a new house, which immediately burns down, killing said wife. In the next scene, he's living in a tiny apartment with a sassy black young nanny (Rah Digga) taking care of the kids. The daughter is a normal young teen, the son a grade-schooler with a bit of an obsession with death. 

Then a miracle occurs: a lawyer shows up to let them know Shaloub's uncle F. Murray has dies and willed them an expensive house. So they head over to check it out. The house is a modernist geometric building covered in windows ("Hope the bathroom is in the basement"). There's also a guy from the electric company trying to get in - but it's actually Matthew Lillard in a jumpsuit. 

So the lawyer gets them in, gets the papers signed, then tells them about the twelve ghosts in containment in the basement. He doesn't mention the fortune in cash somewhere as well - he's going after that himself. So is Lillard. 

So of course, the ghosts get out and start menacing everyone. They have a few pairs of glasses that let them see the ghosts - and I kept thinking that if they just took them off, they wouldn't be so scared. But the ghosts can kill even if you can't see them. Castle's gimmick in the original is that he handed out glasses to the audience that made the ghosts invisible. You could put them on when you got too scared. I could see the attraction.

So aside from having an interesting cast, this movie had at least two things going for it. 

1. Cool modern/deco glass architecture.
2. Goofy enough to qualify as horror comedy, so I could take it, with enough thrills for Ms. Spenser. 

Just to spoil it for you - the lawyer's kill is probably the best in the movie. A glass wall descends on his head and bisects him front from back. Later, someone wonders where he went, and someone else says, "He probably split".