Who's behind the hype machine? Some of the comments on the IMDb message board led me to believe this was superior to the original Ghost Watcher. While not an embarrassment for anyone involved, the movie is only a marginal improvement over it's predecessor.
After an effective opening sequence, the movie rapidly degenerates into a rather un-engaging horror/melodrama. Despite being led to believe otherwise, the acting ranges from reasonable, to... well quite bad. And where-as there are moments of solid and effective film-making, the movie as a whole, just isn't exciting, nor compelling. Technically, the production values and production design look pretty professional. If I were to guess, it looks like a $250,000 16MM production. I'm presuming it isn't, so I've got to give the film credit in that department. Unfortunately, the movie couldn't help feeling like a strange hybrid of a Lifetime drama and a generic straight to video horror movie. A very strange combination. Not an incompetent movie, nor a good one.
I find the make-up to be quite good for its budget. Unfortunately, the special FX don't quite measure up. They're never believable, and often they're distractingly... shall we say, underfunded. For it's budget, I'm sure they did what they can, but why bother if you the resources aren't there? Why even write it into the screenplay? Which bring me to
The screenplay itself. Some movies make you sit at the edge of your seat, some movies don't. This, did not. I actually started thinking of other things as I was watching it. Nothing drove the story in a way I wanted to keep watching. And whereas some of the elements of the story were quite interesting, it just wasn't executed in a way that I found compelling. As far as why that is? Well, the villain is basically lifted from the recent Mummy movies. Sucking souls to become alive again. The writers also never make you believe what's happening is real, there's too much verbal exposition, scenes outstay their welcome, very few turns in the plot, and the characters... The characters are very by the numbers, are terribly generic. There's nothing really inspired about them. You've got your stock troubled teen, her overprotective father, a once skeptical GhostWatcher. They never quite came off as living, breathing human beings. Perhaps it's the direction, but it never really seemed like they were even emotionally involved in what was going on. And when they were, it once again degenerated into characterization worthy of a below average soap opera. Simply yelling banalities back and forth, whether it be sibling rivalries or otherwise. I think the acting in the "scare" moments, worked well enough, but the simple one on one character moments were really DOA. Quite often the actors looked and sounded bored, somewhat unsure of what they themselves were even saying. Yes, I have seen worse, but the acting is no better than other ambitious low budget indies such as "THE WIND" or "ADAM & EVIL".
The score ranges from quite good in moments, to generically low budget. Obvious, over the top, and terribly synthetic sounding. I did laugh out loud in certain moments where I later realized I wasn't supposed to.
Overall, whereas I can't recommend Ghostwatcher 2, it's would be terribly unfair to call it "one of the worst films of all time" (a term used WAY too frequently on these review boards). It's not bad for its budget at all. And if the director was quite a bit harder on himself he might just end up with something special.
Overall rating 2/5
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