Horror fans had a rough go of things in the 1990s. While the decade kicked off with masterpieces like Misery, The Silence of the Lambs, and Jacob’s Ladder, and while Scream revived the slasher subgenre, beloved franchises like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th became laughable imitations of their former glory. Studios started to look to the past for titles with a lot of potential to bring to life in new ways, with fans getting both The Haunting and The House on Haunted Hill in 1999 alone. In 2001, fans were given a new take on William Castle’s 13 Ghosts, with that new take on the concept recently cracking into HBO Max’s Top 10.
It’s not entirely clear why there’s a sudden surge of interest in Thirteen Ghosts (or, annoyingly called “Thir13en Ghosts,” for some reason). Were it October, a time when all horror movies see a surge in popularity, that would make sense, or if a star of the movie had another title that was earning a lot of interest. Other entries in HBO’s current Top 10 include Sinners, One Battle After Another, and Weapons, all of which recently earned a lot of awards attention, making Thirteen Ghosts a certifiable outlier.
Thirteen Ghosts currently sits at only 19% positive reviews on aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, confirming that it didn’t win over many critics at the time it was released, while its audience score isn’t all that much better, only earning 49% positive reactions.
What Is ‘Thirteen Ghosts’ About?
The new take on the concept, which stars Tony Shalhoub, Shannon Elizabeth, and Matthew Lillard and was directed by Steve Beck, is relatively faithful to the source material. Both films focus on a family inheriting a mansion from a long-lost relative, and when they arrive at the mansion, they learn that they aren’t the only residents, as the mansion also contains a dozen ghosts. In the remake, however, there was much more lore developed to explain the origins of the ghosts, with each specter having a unique backstory and creature design.
Producer William Castle wasn’t particularly known for the quality of his films and was instead notorious for the gimmicks he used to promote them. With his House on Haunted Hill, for example, the movie was marketed as offering “Emergo,” a more immersive experience. This equated to skeletons being strung up in theaters to fly at the audience. Gimmicky immersions continued with The Tingler‘s “Percepto,” which caused seats to vibrate, or Homicidal’s “fright break,” which was a delay in the movie offering audiences the chance to escape before a harrowing sequence.
Castle’s 13 Ghosts offered audiences “Illusion-O,” with the movie itself using red- and blue-tinted overlays to film specific sequences. With “Illusion-O,” audiences were given glasses with red-and-blue lenses, and depending on which lens was looked through, they could either see the film’s ghosts more vividly or they would seemingly disappear into the background.
Thirteen Ghosts attempted to pay homage to “Illusion-O,” as the movie itself saw characters wearing special goggles that were required to see apparitions.
Cult Classic or Disappointing Mess?
As any horror fan can tell you, it’s a fine line between camp and schlock, with Thirteen Ghosts being a prime example of this distinction. Much like 1999’s The Haunting before it, the filmmakers attempted to embrace burgeoning CGI effects to craft more effective scares, yet with these effects still largely being rudimentary, this remake’s visuals leave much to be desired.
On the other hand, Lillard’s heightened performance, along with the diversity of the ghouls’ designs and backstories, makes the movie fall more in line with the spirit of monster team-ups like Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. Just two years later, audiences got The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a remake of the 1974 film, whose success kicked off a long line of slasher-centric revivals. Thirteen Ghosts, however, potentially had ambitions that exceeded its effectiveness. Based on the concept’s potential, reports emerged in 2023 that a TV series adaptation was in the works.
Thir13en Ghosts
- Release Date
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October 26, 2001
- Runtime
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91 minutes
- Director
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Steve Beck
- Writers
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Neal Marshall Stevens, Richard D’Ovidio, Todd Alcott, Robb White
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
