I love this movie. So much. We don’t talk about it enough.
The post-Scream early 2000s aren’t exactly considered to be a great time for the horror genre, but even at the worst of times in the genre’s history, there are still many gems to be found. One of those gems in that particular time period was the 2001 remake of Thirteen Ghosts, directed by Steve Beck and produced by Dark Castle Entertainment. At the time, the production company’s goal was to upgrade classic William Castle films for modern times, and Thirteen Ghosts came along just a couple years after House on Haunted Hill was given a fresh new coat of paint.
Okay, so Thirteen Ghosts is something of a hot mess, but goddamn is it a whole lot of fun. The film is primarily set in a glass house that contains a host of evil spirits, and it’s home to some of my personal favorite things: namely, a scenery-chewing performance from Matthew Lillard, incredible production design, gory kills, and some of the most creative ghosts in horror history.
Related: Ranking All of the Dark Castle Entertainment Horror Films
The remake took the basic framework of the 1960 original and went absolutely crazy with it, infusing the premise with over-the-top gore, nudity (ghost nudity, to be specific!), and the frenetic, music video-esque editing that plagued the horror genre at the time. The result? A monster mash with boundless energy and a sense of mindless fun missing from today’s horror films.
The standout highlight of the film is of course the ghosts themselves, which were created by KNB FX. The various monsters include a headless torso, a dude who looks like Pinhead on steroids, and a nude woman whose massive fake breasts gleefully dance up and down; they all look like Spirit Halloween decorations come to horrifying life, and I say that as a total compliment.
As cool as the monsters are, we never really learn much of anything about them… but that’s where the DVD comes into play and helps fill in the blanks. On the Thirteen Ghosts DVD (and also on the Blu-ray disc, which has to date only been released in a two-pack with the House of Wax remake) is a special feature titled “Ghost Files,” and it provides a wealth of information about the individual ghosts that never made its way into the film. Narrated by Cyrus Kriticos (F. Murray Abraham), the interactive feature takes you into Kriticos’ library and lets you control which characters you want to learn about by virtually selecting items on the shelves: each time you choose one, a short, minute-long video delving into the origin story of that ghost is played.
What makes the feature so awesome is that it adds so much to the movie, fleshing out the titular characters and building upon their mythologies. Those backstories are brought to life with concept art, and when you watch the videos, you realize the filmmakers put so much work into developing each of those characters. At only 90-minutes, the film just didn’t have time to dig deep.
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