thistle salad - violivia - thinking far too hard about nothing at all

So here I am, sulking at work because I didn't have nightmares last night. I was ready for nightmares. I was psyching myself up for them. What's the point of renting horror movies if you don't dream about them afterwards, wrapping their horrors into your own net of monsters? I expected monsters. I rented "13 Ghosts"

I should have rented something else, I guess.

But I was freaked by the "House on Haunted Hill." Well, not by the entire movie. The ending was lame, the plot ducked out about halfway through, I didn't give a damn about the characters- (except for Chris Kattan's manic-depressive alcoholic; gotta love the boys who know they're doomed) but there was that one scene that got me, when Sonja Blade wanders off into the basement by herself with her digital camera and suddenly her camera starts picking up feeds from fifty years earlier and the past becomes the present. I had nightmares for a week. Oh, ok, three days. But still.

So, while I didn't have high hopes for "13 Ghosts" I expected THAT SCENE, somewhere along the line, something that would resonate with me and give me a ghost of my own to struggle with.

1) Matthew Lillard. I know I may be about the only one, but I seriously dig the boy. And him being the beaten, broken voice of "we are all doomed" just doubles the fun. Plus, I like the outfit he wears and his desperate "But I don't want to be the good guy" vibe. And the character is all about the desperate vibes. He's a psychic in a house of ghosts. (more on this later.)

Or maybe I should just give in and watch "the Cube" again. Sigh

I should explain here; I am very sensitive to space. For example, everyday I go to work. A horror story in of itself, but not the point. I go to work, I climb a certain amount of stairs, and find myself on a balcony. Every morning. Now, on the rare occasions I go up to the tenth floor on my building, I climb another flight of stairs and find myself on a balcony similar to my see-it-every-day-balcony but half the size. And this freaks me out on a primal level. I can't explain it. There's no sense to it. But I cannot force myself to stand on that balcony because everything that is in me is telling me that the balcony is fundamentally wrong- that there isn't enough between me and the long drop to the ground. So a house where the walls could move and change and rooms become squashably small is a scary thing to me.

3) The Ghosts. I like the way the ghosts were there/ not there. They had physical presence and that was cool. And some of them were damn cool. And some of them weren't. And they were cool and not cool without being particularly scary. And there were way too many of them to make any sense out of, but it wouldn't be called "Thirteen Ghosts" if there weren't, um, twelve of them. Hell. Anyway, the excess of the ghosts, in both looks and sheer numbers, was also kind of a distraction

4) The opening. The first ten minutes of the movie were cool, if "Jurassic Park"-y.

5) Dennis the psychic. Ok, so Matthew Lillard is two of my favorite things. But I think they presented the visions pretty well. His reluctance to touch other people for fear of absorbing their memories, his own personal glass house. Oh. Now there's a movie I would watch. The Glass House as metaphor. Wait, didn't I already say that?

5) The ice-eyed lawyer. That guy was perfect for the role. And I liked how he was frightened of the six year old but made fun of the ghosts. And that he was the one who blindly sealed everyone's fate. That he knew he was leading lambs to the slaughter but didn't realize that he was one of the lambs.

7) The leather-clad chick with the spell book and the explosives (first reel). Every movie should have one of these. The tension brought in by her addition to the house . Her and Dennis' mutual hatred of one another.

8) The dueling voices of good ghost vs. bad. Although one good ghost in the mix of 11 evil ones is a bit odd. Of course, it broke down a little differently- five of them went for the throat, one was good, and the others just lurked for the scare. But I don't think they went far enough with this.

9) The random and panicked dismantling of the Machine. That was nice.

10) The way they established the backstory through panning a room and sound effects during the credits. Very clever.

1) The family. Just how the kids were a) there; b) the most important thing since they were there; c) MIA for the whole middle of the plot- missing, actually, until the last ten minutes. This should have heightened tensions, I know, but I just felt relieved. Thank god the whiny ones aren't in this scene. Or this one. Or this one. Wait a minute…

The thing is- you have kids in a horror movie, you have to protect them. Or it's about you not being able to protect them from things, like "The Sixth Sense," or (if it had been a better movie with the melodrama) "The Watcher in the Woods."

2) Not enough characters are around to effectively decimate the ranks. How can you have a horror movie if there isn't anyone you can kill? There were eight people in the house, which is plenty- but people kept disappearing for unaccountably long periods of time. Or dying in places where no one would find them.

3) They should have brought the action upstairs. So much prettier than the basement. Even when they finally manage to get the action out of the basement, they turn around and go right back down. To look for the frigging children. Who loses their family in a glass house?

4) The bathroom scene. Bathroom scenes are essential for ghost stories. "Stir of Echoes," "The Shining," "Watcher in the Woods," "What Lies Beneath" (Which I saw on an airplane; and I mean saw as in I watched but did not listen, so I don't know if the ghost was actually in the bathroom, or if the movie was just preoccupied with the bathroom), et al. Now I like a dead body in the tub as much as the next girl, but there is a limit- and for me that is this: How much time can a girl really spend primping before a mirror? 'cos Kathy was in that bathroom for at least twenty minutes, smiling at her reflection, patting her hair, waiting for the special effects to kick in. And her enthusiasm for running water was, um, extreme. This wasn't happy to have her own bathroom. This was happy to see modern conveniences after spending three years in the fifteenth century.

5) How often leather-clad Save-the-Other-World chick mentioned the fifteenth century.

6) Having Dennis refer to the Evil Uncle as his friend. I'd accept employer. But friend? When the fact that you are here now indicates that you didn't trust him? He was my friend! (Who I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw him, if I could throw him without having to touch him!) (Who owed me lots of money!) (Who I must have suspected was doing something bad, because why else would I be investigating the workings of his house?)

7) The ethics of ghost hunting. Harped upon. Actually, I thought this was cool as a moral issue; the idea of supernatural rights and a group of people who devote themselves to protecting the rights of the dearly departed to haunt in peace appeals to me. On the other hand, it really detracts from the plot. And they used it as an excuse not to give Wicca girl a character of her own. Why be a person when you can be uptight activist girl? But then who are you when you break with your morals?

8) Too many ghosts! And they all had to be distinct characters with way too much screen time wasted to establish their ghost-ness. Yes, the ghosts were cool. And if this was a television series, we could delve into their origins. But the ghosts got better characterizations than the humans and they didn't have lines! There's no drama in the dead! We're supposed to care about the people in danger, not root for the dead babe with the knife!

Let's start with the twistiness. Twisty plots are cool! Except when the twists negate already established plots. Then your movie resolves itself into a plotless special effects driven big plate of nothing. Now, if "13 Ghosts" had given me that scene I craved that turned my insides, um, inside out, I wouldn't be droning on and on about it. Or if it had some redeeming moment of impossible, sick humor. If it had had that scene I could have just watched it and forgotten about it. I wouldn't be nitpicking to this extreme degree.

1) Your Dead Wife: Plot goes on and on: the Good Ghost is the dead wife of the Protagonist who inherited Glass House from Evil Uncle. Ok. I can accept that his wife's ghost is in the mix. I can't accept that his Evil Uncle knew somehow that Nephew's wife was fated for Violent, Tragic Death at Extremely Convenient Point in Time. Unless the Evil Uncle engineered her death. Which would be so yummy- but considering that she died in a fire I doubt that. It was way too chancy, what with the rest of the family being in danger from the same fire. Now, if the wife had been kidnapped, tortured and murdered and THEN had her tormented spirit enslaved- I would buy the whole premise. They already established that the Evil Uncle would not hesitate from stooping to extreme measures to get what he wants. How many men did he lose in that first scene alone? How much more sense would it have made to have him engineering a tragic death for his niece then have him taking advantage of happy coincidence?

And if it has to be a coincidence, for god's sake take it out of the family! How about the Evil Uncle captures the Dead Wife (and she could be anyone's dead wife) first and then snares the widower. And somehow lures him into the house for the Dread Ritual.

2) The Dread Ritual: Oh, sigh. Blah, blah, noble sacrifice. If you encourage someone to make a noble sacrifice, doesn't that negate the whole noble sacrifice idea? People telling you to kill yourself for the greater good doesn't really feed the beast, does it? I would have loved that- Dad throws himself into the fire and dies, only to have the Dread Ritual go incomplete because of a technicality. Hee.

Oh, I am an empty, evil thing.

3) The Lawyer's Death: Inevitable as it was and very Cube-esque, in its way, the thing is NO ONE KNEW ABOUT IT UNTIL THE MOVIE WAS ALMOST OVER. The lawyer sneaked off and was forgotten. Immediately. He wasn't an example of what the house or the ghosts were capable of, except to the audience. Therefore his death is of no importance. Unless his body is prominently displayed somewhere. Which it wasn't. Someone tripped over him in the last reel. That was it.

4) The leather-clad chick with the spell book and the explosives (third reel). Um. You know what I said before about twisty plots? You can't give us a bad-ass vegetarian Wicca and then suddenly have her be the desperate abused girlfriend ready to commit any crime to please her Evil Overlord. There is switching teams and there is, um, this. If she had some reason other than vapid infatuation to follow the path of Evil, I could have accepted it. Maybe he could be holding the soul of her dead lover hostage. Nothing like people who hate each other working together for the common bad. Better than this "I hate him! I hate him! I love him!" stuff.

Not that I have anything against the desperate abused girlfriend as plot device.

But you give the girl nothing but ethics to burn on and then you strip that from her by having her turn traitor. Ghosts should be free to roam! Thou shalt not enslave souls (unless thou art my boyfriend in which case it's okay). Which makes her as much as a hypocrite as Dennis, if not more. At least he has his last minute good intentions. If this had been a well plotted movie, they could have made more of this- just focusing on the dichotomy between the two; where she seems to be the most morally defensible at the beginning, by the end he is revealed to be the one who didn't lie, um, much. Again, I'm retreating into the movie in my head, which is probably a week at the opera instead of just under two hours last minute movie rental.

The other problem is that exposition about the house and it's purpose was left up to what Dennis could figure out in the first reel (not much) and then Wicca Leather Girl prattling on and on about demonic possession in the fifteenth century. And then she switches to the Evil team. Which means? If she was really evil, she wouldn't have told them the truth about the house's real purpose, except to justify her crashing the party. On the other hand, she's undercover angling for the ultimate sacrifice- the final ingredient for the Dread Ritual. And there isn't anyone who can argue the point with her except for Dennis (who doesn't know what's going on, only that her solution to their problem doesn't make sense). And her first act on arrival is to discredit Dennis.

Inconsistent character. So looking back, knowing she's going to be the betrayer; she shows up in the house to keep the sacrifice alive until the time is right. But she's playing the "Your Uncle is my Enemy" card to a total stranger. She could claim to be anything to him- he doesn't know her and the only person who does WASN'T EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE THERE. Now that would be a movie. The Protagonist would have to choose between her version, the lawyer's version, and the psychic's version of events, without being able to completely trust any of them. But the lawyer's already dead and Dennis can't be trusted because he helped imprison your wife's soul…

But the thing is, she does two things that are all wrong if she's evil- 1) if she's supposed to be keeping the Protagonist alive, why does she let him and the psychic wander back into the basement? 2) Why doesn't she just leave the Nanny in the library where it's safe instead of taking her to the center of the house where the delicate machinery is? Now, if she was passive-aggressively messing with the master plan, I could get that. If she was planting explosives at the same time she was working towards the end of the world-

5) The Villain. Is not clear. Is it the House? The Ghosts? The Evil Uncle? The house is a machine, the ghosts are prisoners, the Evil Uncle is dead (apparently) before the credits roll. But on the other hand, why would someone activate a house designed to confer the wisdom of the ages onto themselves if they were dead? Death is just a convenient ruse for some people.

But who is the bad guy?

Let's look at the numbers:
People killed by ghosts: one
People killed by the house: one
People distracted by ghosts and killed by the house: one
People thrown by ghosts into whirling blades that double as floorboards: one

Are the ghosts evil? Is the house evil?

The Leather Wicca advocates freeing the souls; but I can't help but think- yes cages are awful, but you don't want the tigers on the loose either. In fact she says as much in one breath; "That's one of {Your Evil Uncle}'s victims; I hope the barrier spells hold."

Well, the ghosts are dangerous and so is the house, and so is the man who built it and put the ghosts inside. But by telling us that Evil Uncle is dead, they leave us floundering for a villain. It would be one thing to have him dead and a second who despises Dennis (like the lawyer) apparently taking his place- otherwise it feels like the house is running itself to no logical end. (Ooh! like "The Cube"!) Or if the ethical arguments had been removed and we could see the ghosts as evil. (Except some of them are evil. Some of them are very dangerous.)

So this would have worked for me if there had been two other characters in the mix- someone to lighten the load of Leather Wicca- so she could have a nice, integrated personality and someone else could be the traitor and someone to play the villain until the real villain arrived. Or they could be the same person. Or the nanny! With Evil Uncle keeping such close tabs on his Estranged Family, she could be a plant. Now I'm going to imagine an ending where the Nanny knocks the Wicca out and flounces off in the arms of Secret Lover Evil Uncle. Or kill her! Ooh! After spending the whole movie fretting over the children, that would be fab!

Now I'm playing Clue with a movie plot.

6) Dennis' death. Ok. It was very cool that he foresaw his own death and a moment, in my opinion, fraught with dramatic possibilities that were, of course, completely overlooked by the movie. My question, entirely irrelevant, is this: When a psychic sees his own death, is that a fixed certainty or a mathematical probability?

Do you try to avoid it or do you plunge into it because it's ordained?

I have mixed feelings about the death of Dennis. On one hand, cool. On the other, he sacrificed himself for very little reason, beyond apparently deciding that it was the thing to do.

And yet- why wouldn't his death qualify as the noble sacrifice?

Of course I want my favorite character to save the world.

7) The ending. For an evil mastermind, the Evil Uncle has a bad sense of timing. He should have kept himself hidden. Let's bait the sacrifice! Make him mad! That'll really push him into suicide mode!

8) And I don't like that things working out was just a big old coincidence. The Nanny just happened to wake up in time to destroy the machine. Hell, if say, Dennis' ghost had woken her! Or if the Dead Wife had given her husband some useful advice instead of just letting him wallow in the pathos. But everyone diverges, half of them die, and yet, somehow, they're still working in concert.

9) Your big moment of destiny- to walk across the living room. Sigh

Who lives in a house like this?

What they did right:

What bothered me; not even talking about the plot yet:

The plot: