Audience Member
Elizabeth Dean (Servary) makes a comfortable living from selling ghost detection devices of questionable utility and her supernaturally themed porn website, but when an emotionally disturbed young woman (Byrnes) who is being haunted by a real ghost approaches her for help, Elizabeth is drawn into an investigation of a real haunting.
"GhostWatcher" is a neat ghost movie that, despite being made on what is obviously a very low budget, it's more entertaining than many films with one hundred or perhaps even a thousand times the budget this was shot for. It's got a nice idea at its center--a phony ghost investigator gets drawn into a real haunting involving a particularly nasty ghost--and director David Cross and his cinematographer Dan Poole have a good eye for building suspense through visuals... there were a couple of scenes early in the movie that gave me Hitchcock flashbacks. If the editing had been a bit tighter, there could even have been some moments that might have rivaled his films for tensions and terror.
The script could have used more work (there are more examples of bad dialogue than good, and there are logic fallacies that strain even the most generous-minded viewer's ability to suspend disbelief), the acting is inconsistent (Byrnes and Servary are excellent in some scenes but awful in others... although this may arise from weaknesses of the script, as actors are often only as good as the material they have to work with), and the film ends in a confused mess of badly motivated character actions that are founded in the dictates of plot instead of character and good story telling.
I believe that if Cross had taken it through a draft or two more, he would have realized that Elizabeth Dean behaves in an utterly unrealistic fashion during the second half of the movie, even if we allow for the possibility that Cross was shooting for some sort of extreme version of a "hooker with a heart of gold" idea for her character. (I can't go into detail about how Elizabeth's behavior is unrealistic without spoiling several of the films major plot-twists, but this already neat character could have been so much more impressive if only she had been better developed.
With a more polished script, slightly tighter editing in a number of scenes, this film would have been very impressive. I'm going to have to seek out a copy of "Ghost Watcher II", because if Cross learned anything from this first film, I'm certain the sequel will superior.
(At the very least, he'll probably have a zombie that looks a little less like a member of the Blue Man Group down on his luck. That make-up added much unintended hilarity to what otherwise was one of the film's creepiest and most effective sequences.
GhostWatcher
Starring: Jillian Byrnes, Jennifer Servary, and Marianne Hayden
Director: David A. Cross
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
01/18/23
Full Review
Audience Member
This movie provided a few scares but all in all, there was nothing to it. The movie contradicts itself forty percent of the time and the script must have been a whole ten pages with the little amount of dialogue there was. The only part that made me jump was the part where the lights are flickering on and off in her apartment and then BOOM the guy is right beside her. In the end of the movie, the writer decides that they must be injured to be taken over or whatever. Well do they forget the part where her face was all cut up while the guy was crawling around her apartment in the beginning? Hm....and who the f*ck turns blue when they're dead instead of decaying? And what was the point of Elizabeth being some porn star too. It had no use to the plot (which there was not much of). The story was somewhat unique but the ending was REALLY gay. And it was so nasty that his lip was stuck to hers! GROSS! This movie was confusing until about half way through but if you're up for a confusing and plot lacking movie, then this is for you!
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/13/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Personally this movie just made me really really mad. It was such an open ended movie. It was like they couldn't really decide how they wanted to end it, so they just had her kiss him and it was over. The video taping of this movie was like something out of a bad porno. It seemed to be a home video camera that somebody used to make their own scary movie. Truthfully I think I could do a better job at this movie.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
01/14/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Plot summary:
An agorophobic 20-something woman locks herself in a second-rate apartment, and for some reason, after a full year, it becomes haunted. So instead of leaving she buys expensive equipment and hires a quasi-internet porn star/"Ghost Watcher." The fake Ghost Hunter then decides to become real and do a good job for no apparant reason.
Review:
These woman might have been more fun to watch if the movie would have had a better story and dialogue. The money the second rate stripper's who were talked into starring in this movie could have made at work was more than the whole production budget, and it probably only took three days to shoot. The movie must have been shot on VHS because even a one-chip DV camera would have yeilded a superior image.
I'm sure the other two reviews on here (both 10's) were made by poeple who were involved in the movie. If you all want a real screenplay next time then email me at [email="dtw64@hotmail.com"]dtw64@hotmail.com[/email].
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
02/18/23
Full Review
Audience Member
[color=darkorchid][url="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ghost_watcher/dvd.php?select=2"][img]http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/movie/coverv/55/233155.jpg[/img][/url][/color]
[b][color=darkorchid]SYNOPSIS ~~~~~~~[/color][/b]
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[color=darkorchid]The director relies more on strong characters and suspense to make this a Freaky chilling movie. [/color]
[color=darkorchid]Laura has been an agoraphobic shut-in for a year, ever since a violent and traumatic encounter that changed her world forever. When she begins to suspect that even her apartment is not free from menace, she contacts online ghosthunter Elizabeth for help. At first Elizabeth professes not to believe in the paranormal, but the more she learns from Laura, the more enmeshed she becomes in whatever it is that's terrorizing the troubled recluse. With reluctant aid from Elizabeth, as well as her best friend and caretaker Nikki, Laura battles demons both internal and external as she attempts to gather the courage to escape.[/color]
[b][color=darkorchid][/color][/b]
[b][color=darkorchid]Ok this may not sound scary ,but it is freaky as all hell...[/color][/b]
[b][color=darkorchid]They may not have had a big budget to make this a huge movie...but this movie was very good. I totally got scared and I actually might have to go buy it... It is worth watching for sure!!!![/color][/b]
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/15/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Wonderful! View my Journal to read more!
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/28/23
Full Review
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