Eccentric gazillionaire Cyrus Kriticos dies in a violent pre-credit sequence and leaves his fortune to his nephew Arthur. Arthur, who lost his wife in a tragic house fire 6 months earlier, is now a bitter, heartbroken mess of a man, living with his two children and a sassy au pair in a small apartment. The family is ecstatic when they are informed by a creepy lawyer that they have inherited Cyrus's grandiose estate and immediately make the several hour drive out into the remote countryside to see their new home. The house, made entirely of sound and shatterproof glass, seems like a dream come true...at least until Dennis Rafkin, a tweaky psychic filled with dire warnings, shows up and passionately advises Arthur to get out and take his family with him. But it's too late. The house is actually a giant machine designed by Satan and built by Cyrus for the sole purpose of opening the "Eye Of Hell" and it seals itself shut, trapping everyone inside and releasing the 13 ghosts imprisoned in the basement from their enspelled holding cells. The ghosts are now onthe hunt, determined to kill anyone who crosses their path.
First, the good points, few though they may be. The ghosts are pretty cool looking. The Jackal in particular is impressive with his steel cage headgear and his rabid temper. The girl ghost too was sufficiently freaky looking. The house itself is a cool set, filled with some really nifty looking mechanisms. And that's where the cool stuff ends.
The performances in this film are excruciatingly bad, and the script is so abysmally idiotic that it hurt. Matthew Lillard is by far the only character I gave a damn about; his twitchy, geeky psychic was oddly likable. And poor F. Murray Abraham...he really deserves better roles than this. The rest of the family is so freaking annoying that I was looking forward to seeing them all get killed in many painful and horrible ways. After five full minutes of listening to the cast scream: "Bobby!" over and over, I developed a pounding migraine. The gore is minimal but halfway decent when it appears, i.e. the "split" scene. But the film gets really tedious really fast as characters spend much of their time running down glass corridors, screaming their heads off and stupidly pausing to look through their spectral welding glasses at the ghosts, who are given ample time to close the distance between themselves and their brain dead victims.
A very bad, stupid, lifeless movie.
First, the good points, few though they may be. The ghosts are pretty cool looking. The Jackal in particular is impressive with his steel cage headgear and his rabid temper. The girl ghost too was sufficiently freaky looking. The house itself is a cool set, filled with some really nifty looking mechanisms. And that's where the cool stuff ends.
The performances in this film are excruciatingly bad, and the script is so abysmally idiotic that it hurt. Matthew Lillard is by far the only character I gave a damn about; his twitchy, geeky psychic was oddly likable. And poor F. Murray Abraham...he really deserves better roles than this. The rest of the family is so freaking annoying that I was looking forward to seeing them all get killed in many painful and horrible ways. After five full minutes of listening to the cast scream: "Bobby!" over and over, I developed a pounding migraine. The gore is minimal but halfway decent when it appears, i.e. the "split" scene. But the film gets really tedious really fast as characters spend much of their time running down glass corridors, screaming their heads off and stupidly pausing to look through their spectral welding glasses at the ghosts, who are given ample time to close the distance between themselves and their brain dead victims.
A very bad, stupid, lifeless movie.