Movies
[Review] ‘Ghost Team’ is Painfully Unfunny
Those who have already decided that the new Ghostbusters wasn’t for them, it looked as if they had another option: Oliver Irving’s Ghost Team.
Irving co-wrote the new comedy with Peter Warren in which a paranormal-obsessed man (Napoleon Dynamite‘s Jon Heder) mounts his own investigation into the beyond with his depressed best friend (Harold and Kumar‘s David Krumholtz), a cable access medium (“Broad City’s” Paul W. Downs), an overeager security guard (Jeepers Creepers‘ Justin Long), and a god-awful psychic (“Strangers With Candy’s” Amy Sedaris).
Ghost Team not only boasted the perfect low budget comedy bro-casting, but a concept that appeared to be the low budget counterpart to Ghostbusters. Unfortunately, the filmmakers lied to you.
From laughs to capturing spooks on camera, Ghost Team fails to deliver on any promise.
Albiet a bit of a spoiler, but quite necessary in explaining why Bloody Disgusting readers should avoid this title, there are no ghosts in Ghost Team. Yes, they go hunting for the supernatural, but there’s nothing remotely spooky here. So, if it’s not scary, it’s funny, right? No. Ghost Team has one of the better low budget comedy casts in recent memory and yet, somehow, Irving manages to deliver zero laughs. It’s painfully unfunny to the point of boredom. It’s so bad that I have to question whether or not there was even a script; is it possible they improvised everything? And if this is the truth, it makes it look as if the aforementioned cast has zero talent, which I refuse to believe (this would destroy my world).
The only thing that ties everything together is that Irving and Warren attempt to offer redemption to the unlikely heroes who are otherwise failures in their everyday lives. It comes as a wasted effort for the reasons mentioned above.
Ghost Team is the worst of independent releases in that it’s going to be successful based on the names boasted on the cover, yet leave every single viewer disappointed. There’s middle of the road and there’s this, which is a road that’s yet to be paved. The only thing scary here is that someone may actually pay hard-earned money to rent this.
Ghost Team is now exclusively on Google Play with a theatrical run set for August 12th.
Before updating the video nasty Faces of Death, director Daniel Goldhaber and writer Isa Mazzei explored the dangers of online life in tech-thriller Cam, their feature debut that was acquired by Netflix in 2018 after making waves on the festival circuit.
At the end of last year, the Netflix exclusive quietly departed from the streaming platform, left without another streaming home.
It’s not an isolated story; Mike Flanagan’s Hush also left streaming entirely for a period until it was finally picked up on both physical media and other streaming services.
While the tech-thriller currently isn’t available to watch on Netflix, Tubi, Hulu, or any other platforms, that’s not a problem for Cam thanks to a very cool move by Goldhaber: the director has made his breakout film accessible to watch online for free via his website.
As his site notes: “CAM is unfortunately not currently available to view on any platforms, so you can watch it here if you like :).“
No subscriptions or fees necessary, just hit play.
Cam follows Alice (Madeline Brewer), who works as an online cam girl obsessed with her ranking on the cam site. The higher her ranking goes, the more it draws unwanted attention, and Alice soon finds herself replaced on her own show with a doppelganger.
Written by Mazzei, a former camgirl, it uses the horror thriller premise to examine the life of a sex worker; Alice’s career ambition is directly at odds with the shame it brings to her family, and how she tries to spare them from it by keeping them in the dark. It only compounds her danger when the doppelganger enters the equation in Goldhaber’s engaging thriller.
For a deep dive into the treacherous world of Cam, listen to Horror Queers’ episode on it now.
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