Wishmaster (1997)

In a medieval Persian palace, a wizard watches in terror as the people around him are tortured by all manner of supernatural machinations. Men are turned to stone, women are turned into human-plant hybrids, skeletons rip out of their own bodies and attack the first person they see. It’s the kind of pandemonium usually only reserved for a horror film’s climax. The wizard makes his way to the throne room where he discovers the demonic djinn responsible for the horrors is trying to coax the emperor into making a third and final wish. If successful, the djinn will be able to subjugate the entire world. Luckily, the wizard is able to capture the djinn in a magic gemstone, which is then hidden in a statue.

Eight hundred years later, an art dealer (Robert Englund) and his assistant (Ted Raimi) are watching as dock workers unload the recently rediscovered statue from a boat. As luck would have it, the crane malfunctions, dropping the crate on the assistant’s head. As workers scramble to dig through the debris, a forklift operator finds the gemstone, steals it, and hawks it at a pawn shop. The pawn shop operator takes the gem to appraiser Alexandra Amberson (Tammy Lauren) who accidentally frees the djinn.

It’s the same setup as before: the person who freed the djinn must make three wishes before he can rule the world. In the meantime, the djinn will roam the city, stealing faces and fulfilling humans’ wishes in predictably dishonest ways. While this certainly allows for some great movie deaths, most of the kills between the spectacular bookend scenes are kinda lame. When the djinn is purchasing some new threads, the store clerk wishes her beauty will last forever, at which point the djinn turns her into a mannequin. One man wishes for a million dollars, at which point the film humorously cuts to a sweet little old lady filling out her son’s name as her beneficiary before she promptly boards an exploding airplane.

I passed on the movie in theaters because, instead of hyping the gore, the trailers mostly advertised the bloodless CGI effects. That CGI, by the way, was not at all ready for prime time. I caught the movie about a year later when it premiered on premium movie channels and I was immediately won over by its early assurances that this was a movie by horror fans for horror fans. Robert Englund has a substantial supporting role while cameos include Buck Flower, Reggie Bannister, Joseph Pilato, Tony Todd, Kane Hodder, and Angus Scrimm as the voiceover narrator. I also like Andrew Divoff in the role of the djinn, but I’ll speak more on his performance in my review of the sequel.

KNB EFX Group, who provides the top-notch practical effects for Wishmaster, were born to make movies like this; in fact, the “K” in “KNB” is the film’s director. I remember reading a Fangoria interview with KNB’s three founders (Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero, and Howard Berger) in which they say they were intimidated when they turned the page of Tarantino’s From Dusk Till Dawn script and read, “All hell breaks loose.” They certainly rose to the challenge. Only a year later, they make all hell break loose yet again for Wishmaster’s opening and closing scenes. Although their fantastic physical creations clash with the film’s overuse of early CGI, KNB’s work alone is worth the price of admission.

Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies (1999)

I avoided Wishmaster 2 for over a decade because everyone said it was awful. Even fanboys of the original said it sucked. In fact, the film currently holds a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. The director himself admitted he hasn’t seen it since he made it. These facts do not bode well for the franchise, especially when I’m only at the second entry of the four.

The opening credits, which lost Craven’s seal of approval this time around, make it immediately clear Wishmaster 2 isn’t going to have any horror icons making cameos like the original did. Tommy “Tiny” Lister, Robert LaSardo, and Bokeem Woodbine from Fargo’s second season make substantial appearances, but beyond those three actors there’s rarely a moment of recognition. Fortunately, Andrew Divoff returns as the evil Djinn. His performance isn’t something I can gloss over—it’s the entire reason the picture works for me.

Sometimes good acting and compelling acting aren’t one in the same. Even though I wouldn’t call Divoff a good actor here (he’s been good in movies which didn’t have the word “Wishmaster” in the title), there’s something interesting about him—something playfully sadistic. You can almost hear the director saying, “Okay Andrew, be menacing here,” before Divoff puts on a mischievous face which looks like he secretly farted. Whether or not this bizarre facet of his performance is intentional, it works. He’s a fucking demon so why shouldn’t his expressions be completely alien to humans? I imagine it’s something Crispin Glover would have done in a similar role.

We’re going to see a lot of the Djinn this time around. If you disliked that Hellraiser: Bloodline made Pinhead a little too pedestrian, you’re probably going to hate Wishmaster 2 because the Djinn is no longer content with lurking about the shadows, cloaked in mystery. But if you want to see Ernest Goes to Jail starring an evil genie as opposed to a clumsy idiot, you’re going to get your money’s worth.

In the first film, “Be careful what you wish for” was the tagline as the Djinn had twisted interpretations of his victim’s wishes. This time we quickly learn that the rules regarding the Djinn’s powers are much murkier than previous suspected. When a police officer tells him to “freeze,” the Djinn encases him in a block of ice. This interpretation would have been acceptable if the character had said “I wish I was cool” or something along those lines, but whatever. More often than not, the setups to these ridiculous payoffs are poorly worded from the get-go.

I do have to say my favorite wish fulfillment in the entire saga is when LaSardo’s character wishes his lawyer would “go fuck himself.” The anticipation of that moment is supremely satisfying. Whether or not the payoff is any good is debatable. I won’t ruin it for you. There’s also a scene in which the Djinn is having a dull conversation, which is unexpectedly interrupted when the heroine pops out of nowhere and shoots at him. It’s one of the most awkward and hilarious things I’ve ever seen.

I know what you’re thinking: it sounds like I may have enjoyed this movie. Well, I hope this doesn’t ruin my street cred’, but I did. I’m sure you can say this of any film, but perhaps I was simply in the right frame of mind. Even though the practical effects don’t hold a candle to the original, and it’s severely lacking in the gore department, it’s an oddly satisfying picture. So yeah, if there’s ever a Kickstarter for Wishmaster vs. Leprechaun or Wishmaster in Space, I’d fund that shit in a heartbeat.

Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell (2001)

First off, there are no ‘Gates of Hell’ and nobody goes beyond them. Knowing nothing more than the erroneous title, I was expecting someone to, like, end up in the Djinn’s domain or something. I guess they already did that in the previous installment and it appears the series took yet another budget cut. Secondly, I wasn’t aware Wishmaster 3 didn’t have Andrew Divoff in it. I probably would’ve skipped this one had I known that beforehand.

The previous film opened with a shootout. It wasn’t spectacular by any means, but it was entertaining enough. Wishmaster 3 opens with a drawn-out introduction to some of the tamest college co-eds I’ve ever seen. If these kids were any more wholesome, they’d be organizing church events. And I’ve got a hunch the casting director chose the talent from the pages of a hairstyle book at Supercuts. Although the series’ acting was never its strong suit, it gets worse. Much worse. These kids aren’t even fit for a Stridex commercial.

At the end of Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, the heroine hid Pinhead’s puzzle box deep in freshly poured concrete. As temporary as that solution turned out to be, the heroine of Wishmaster 2 must have done an even lousier job of hiding the Djinn’s summoning stone. (Or perhaps it’s supposed to be a different jewel and a different Djinn altogether, which could neatly explain Divoff’s absence.) Without explanation, the jewel ends up in the hands of a college professor so bland I couldn’t wait to see him die.

When the demon finally gets around to killing the professor off with the dumbest wish fulfillment to date, I was happy I wouldn’t have to endure the actor’s stupid face anymore. Unfortunately, the Djinn decides to wear the character’s skin as his own, a creative decision which makes it clear the filmmakers weren’t even trying to make a likable movie. Imagine Simon Pegg without any interesting characteristics whatsoever and you’ve got a good idea of what the villain looks like this time around.

Wishmaster 3 kills fewer victims per hour than the previous films did per scene. You keep hearing about this big party on campus and expect the Djinn to crash it for the movie’s climax, à la Nightmare on Elm Street 2. But he never does and viewers end up watching the end credits with the bluest balls in history. The one moment that almost redeems this mess is the hilariously anti-climactic resolution, which reminds me of a gag from Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.

At this point, I’m so militantly anti-Wishmaster, I have no desire to watch the fourth film in the series. But hey, in for a penny, in for my soul, right?

Wishmaster 4: The Prophecy Fulfilled (2002)

I figured it was a safe bet the prophecy would go unfulfilled in this one. I was partially right. The heroine of this film actually makes three wishes—which is further than the Djinn has ever gotten before. Unfortunately for us, her third wish is a paradox due to the bullshit rules of the Djinn’s magic (read: lame excuses to stretch this film to feature length). We quickly learn the foretold apocalypse will be postponed once again.

I don’t know what I was expecting. If the prophecy ever does get fulfilled, it’ll bring the kind of fire and brimstone that straight-to-video producers simply can’t afford. We’ve also got the same director we got last time, Chris Angel (no, not the Mindfucker guy… at least I don’t think it is), whose climax in the previous film proved he’s not the go-to guy for an exciting ending… or an exciting anything, really. I will say this about the director: although Wishmaster 4 is more or less the same movie as Wishmaster 3, it’s a helluva lot better. Don’t get me wrong: it’s still not very good.

The new heroine is the girlfriend of a man who lost movement of his legs in a motorcycle accident. Three years later, the lawyer working with the couple surprises them with a gift: an artifact which contains the Djinn’s summoning jewel. The Djinn, played by the same guy who played him the last time around, is up to the same ol’ tricks: he uses the lawyer’s form to worm his way into the main characters’ lives. There are plenty of opportunities to be clever here, but the filmmakers have other plans.

It’s twenty minutes until we see the first victim meet his demise. The special effects for the first kill are way more convincing (and gruesome) than anything in the previous entry… and nothing after the first kill hits the same high watermark. I’m happy to say there are a lot more unintentionally hilarious moments (an unexpected decapitation is one, a stupidly gentle car crash is another, but just wait until you see the camera linger on the phoniest sword in movie history). The increased cheese factor makes this one much more watchable than its predecessor; it’s so cheap, they couldn’t even afford more than one vehicle for the big car chase.

I think the biggest missed opportunity will be apparent to anyone: a bartender casually remarks he would give his soul “just to be a pimple on her ass” in regards to an attractive stripper. Naturally, the Djinn grants him this wish, but we never actually see it. Remember the human meatball in Nightmare on Elm Street 4? Wouldn’t it have been great if they had showed they wisher’s face sprout on the woman’s ass? Even better, I would have loved to see her go twirling down the pole, intercut with reaction shots of the pimple drawing to the stage before POP! goes the bartender.

What we have here is a director whose intentions are admirable: you can tell by the amount of drama he shoehorned into it that he tried to make a more mature horror movie. The problem is parts three and four were filmed back-to-back while he was trying to make Titanic on a soap opera budget. We ultimately got two films for the price of one and it really shows. This one was a lot easier to get through than the last, but I can’t recommend either of them to anyone but masochists.

When I was a kid, I was stoked to see Brainscan. Not only was it hyped to the moon and back, even Entertainment Tonight was pushing it as some kind of historic cross between horror and modern technology. I wasn’t disappointed, either. The teenage characters were addicted to gore flicks (Who’s that remind you of?), the sets were dressed with piles of Fangoria, and there was just enough violence to keep its intended audience—me—entertained.

Terminator 2’s Edward Furlong plays Michael, the kind of outsider who would be the cops’ first suspect if his school ever got shot up. Moodiness aside, I really identified with Michael; I still want to live in his hyper-nineties, pseudo-cyberpunk bedroom, playing CD-ROMs all day while using a voice-activated interface that puts Siri to shame. Why would a teenager need his own refrigerator, especially when his mother’s dead and his father’s never home? Because fuck the rest of the house, that’s why. That attic bedroom is the tits and I would live in it forever.

Although Michael used to love horror, he’s grown blasé on the genre. He turns cynical whenever video game companies market their “terrifying experiences” and he talks about his favorite movies with all the enthusiasm of someone going through a divorce. By the time he gets his hands on a copy of the video game Brainscan, he rolls his eyes like the angsty little punk he is. The game ends up blowing his mind (never mind the seizure it caused) and he raves about it to his metalhead friend (his only friend) on the way to school the next day.

In a plot twist no one didn’t see coming, Brainscan’s depictions of murder seem so real because they are real. Michael finds out he unwittingly killed a man during a trance and spends the rest of the movie covering up the crime. Each cover-up requires an additional cover-up and so on and so forth. I’m afraid I’m making this sound cleverer than it is, but it’s not not clever, either. Just average clever, I’d say.

That’s when the Trickster enters the picture, played by T. Ryder Smith. If you don’t recognize the name, that’s okay. The film’s marketing department wanted you to believe this guy was a big deal. The impish psycho is a cross between Freddy Krueger and a bad MTV veejay. Smith, who was previously a stage actor, doesn’t necessarily suck in the role, but he feels miscast. No amount of guitar riffs and scenery-chewing antics will convince you this guy’s comfortable in the role of a bad ass, nor will you believe he’s actually eating raw chicken as advertised in the aforementioned Entertainment Tonight promo.

The film’s really punching above its weight when it folds in Frank Langella as a surprisingly likable detective. Whereas all the other adults are either missing in action or portrayed as clueless squares (Parents just don’t understand, right, fellow kids?), Langella gives maximum effort and it shows. Other portions of the movie are surprisingly mature, too, which is why I give it a cautious recommendation.

Whenever Brainscan gets odd, you just have to remind yourself: “Because the nineties.” The oddest thing about Brainscan is probably the subplot. The filmmakers go for a Judy Blume approach to teenage sexuality, which comes off as creepy by today’s standards. See, Michael secretly video tapes his high school crush whenever she gets undressed in her bedroom window. At first you think the film means to damn his voyeuristic proclivities as a despicable character flaw, but later the filmmakers make it clear it’s supposed to be romantic. I guess if you’re as vapid as these teens are, it would be kind of romantic, but that’s missing the point.

Despite the film’s many misses, it gets a lot of points for effort. Yes, they were being just a little too derivative of Nightmare on Elm Street sequels and yes, there are so many holes in the plot they begin to form clover shapes. Yet where so many other “serious” horror flicks miss the mark, Brainscan is only a near miss. I really enjoyed it at times and managed to keep my snickering to a minimum. It could very well be the fulcrum point between eighties slasher flicks and the nineties abundance of Scream knock-offs. That alone is interesting for historical purposes.

Director Frank Henenlotter insists he makes exploitation films, not horror. The line is blurry in Basket Case and Brain Damage, but Frankenhooker made the distinction a little bit clearer. With his fifth and final film, Bad Biology, Henenlotter goes all the way. The paradox of Bad Biology is A) you should see it without knowing anything about it and B) you really ought to know what you’re getting yourself into. It’s easily the most offensive movie I’ve featured all month. For most viewers, the offending material will probably be the rampant psychosexuality and violence toward mutant babies.

The main character, Jennifer, is a sex addict with an abnormal vagina. Not only is she helplessly compelled to sleep with strangers every night, she murders them before giving birth to a baby merely two hours after its conception. In a concurrent subplot, there’s a guy nicknamed Batz on account of him being bat-shit insane. His penis was accidentally severed at birth; although the doctors were able to reattach it, it never worked right. In an effort to rejuvenate his beloved member, he began experimenting with steroids and other drugs. Now his penis has developed a drug deficiency and a mind of its own.

You remember the phallic rocket gag in the Austin Powers movies? There’s a scene like that near the end of Bad Biology. It’s much funnier because it doesn’t require cheap cameos to sell it (only cheap effects). Just when you think the sequence is over, it starts all over again, and the sheer stupidity of it makes you snicker. A lot of R-rated Hollywood comedies certainly try to be as outlandish as Bad Biology in a safe, MPAA-approved way, but Henenlotter pulls off the real deal effortlessly.

Obviously Jennifer and Batz are made for each other, but they don’t meet until the second half of the movie. That may sound like the movie plods, but it doesn’t. It’s actually one of the best contemporary exploitation films I’ve ever seen. It’s also one of the shittiest-looking. No, it’s not quite as shitty-looking as yesterday’s Video Violence, but movies like that get a pass because a bonafide film shouldn’t look as bad as Bad Biology does.

Despite the gore and the bizarre subject matter, it’s a cute little picture. Now it’s time for Basket Case 4, Frank. We all want to see it, buddy.

A New Yorker opens a video store in a small town. One day a homemade snuff film finds its way into the overnight return box. Naturally, the cops don’t believe his “crazy story” because the movie would be over as soon as they do their job. Or maybe they’re in on it… maybe. (I’m not just being flippant here. It really is kind of hard to tell.)

I began snickering almost as soon as Video Violence began. In the opening scene, a couple of sports store clerks wait for an unsuspecting shopper to go to the dressing room before bursting in and beating her to death with a baseball bat. That isn’t the funny part. What’s funny is these aren’t actors, just people the director probably talked into being in his little horror movie. I imagine the writing process was like this: “Hey, I know a guy who owns a sporting goods store, so let’s set a scene there!”

In 1985, United Home Video gave us Blood Cult, which was billed as the first straight-to-video horror movie. Whether or not that claim is true is debatable, but I cherish the VHS copy I found in the clearance bin because it was shot in and around my hometown. (United’s follow-up, The Ripper, has scenes shot about two or three blocks from my current address.) Video Violence references Blood Cult twice and there’s something oddly pointed about it.

According to Wikipedia, Video Violence is an angry response to the cheap horror films which were infiltrating the relatively new video market. The director, who worked in a video store himself, claims he was disheartened by the fact so many people were into these sick types of movies. So what did he do as a response? He created one of the sickest of the bunch. At least one section is as uncomfortably brutal as the scene in A Clockwork Orange, complete with the instigators using scissors to reveal the victim’s nipples.

So it’s remarkable that out of Blood Cult, The Ripper, and Redneck Zombies, Video Violence is the most watchable. The other movies were boring more often than not, but even though it’s longer, Video Violence has that certain undefinable trait found in Neil Breen films and Tommy Wiseau’s The Room. The actors probably have no business being in a movie, but what they lack in talent they make up with charm. Imagine driving through a small town and seeing this guy on the sidewalk:

I always loved the idea of everyday people picking up a camera and making a movie. Youtube has kind of ruined the novelty of ultra-low budget filmmaking, but back then it was great to think an impromptu horror movie was the talk of a small town in a Waiting for Guffman kind of way. Video Violence drags a little towards the end, but atones for its slip-up soon enough.

Why does black magic, devil-worshiping, and detective noir go together so well? There are few genre mashups I like more than hard-boiled horror. This one reminds me of Jacob’s Ladder, The Ninth Gate, and Lord of Illusions, all three of which draw me back for repeat viewings. If those aren’t your cup of tea, neither is Angel Heart.

Mickey Rourke plays Harry Angel, a morally ambiguous private detective in 1950s New York. He’s just been hired by Louis (Robert De Niro) to track down a missing person by the name of Johnny Favorite. Louis’s motivation is vague at best, but he’s offering Angel five thousand bucks to do it. So even when some of Angel’s leads turn up dead, he needs the money too bad to quit.

Here’s something I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately: What’s the difference between a trope and a cliché, anyway? The simple answer: we like tropes. They’re the elemental building blocks—or perhaps the shorthand—of mood. Like Jacob’s Ladder, Angel Heart is a master of mood, but more than anything it’s a master of imagery. Watch it a second time and those nightmarish images will make a little more sense. Somehow, though, the film becomes even more unsettling with coherence.

Angel Heart is darkly funny at times, too. When his investigation leads him to New Orleans, Angel falls under the scrutiny of a couple of homicide detectives who’re trying to finger him for the murder of a musician who choked to death on his own severed genitalia. Later, they harass Angel for the murder of a woman who, they claim, “Died under similar circumstances.” Angel squints at them before asking, “She choke on her dick, too?”

If the movie breaks down anywhere, it’s in the end when Angel starts piecing together the puzzle. I’m sure it was new territory at the time of its release, but nowadays it’s so old hat you might figure it out by the end of the first reel. Doesn’t matter. Angel Heart is one of the best horror films ever made.

Cinemax was kind to me in the 90s. I recorded Witchboard 2 on the same VHS as 976-Evil 2 and Amityville 6, the latter of which taught me that if you take the cable of a guitar amp and plug it into an attacker’s mouth, you can make them explode (but only after turning the volume knob up). I’ve just seen Witchboard 2 again, thanks to r/badmovies’ latest movie marathon. I suspect I’ve now seen the movie more than anyone else, including the people who made it.

Sure, it’s marginally fun with the right crowd (attendees developed a drinking game with rules such as “drink every time you see mom jeans”), but this marks the first time I’ve fallen asleep during this year’s 31 Days of Gore. I was out for about twenty minutes and somehow didn’t miss a thing.

The leading female, who we’ll call Dullsville, moves into an apartment and decides she’s going to be a hotshot painter. Her landlady (Laraine Newman from SNL) is crazy and believes it’s still 1969 for no other reason than the filmmakers thought it would be funny. (Nothing in this movie is intentionally funny and it’s painful whenever it tries.) Dullsville’s love interest is a snarky photographer who helps her investigate the strange happenings that occur after the previous tenant’s Ouija board is found in a closet. Then nothing interesting whatsoever happens for a gruelingly long time.

Here’s a movie that attempts to make use of the camera techniques Sam Raimi pioneered in Evil Dead films, but the shots are used nonsensically. The camera pushes through a moving car, down a chimney, and sometimes flies all over the damn place, but there’s rarely a reason for it. It’s as if the filmmakers are mimicking things they’ve seen in better movies, but didn’t understand why they were effective.

Calling the characters one-dimensional would be an insult to doodles. As for redeeming qualities? There are none. The most exciting thing in the movie was given away by the box art (see above). It turns out that was a dream anyway. How lame.

Dawn of the Dead and Rosemary’s Baby are two of my favorite horror movies of all time. The former’s Ken Foree appears in The Lords of Salem, while the latter was obviously a huge influence on director Rob Zombie. Intellectually, I can tell you this film is a pretentious mess. That didn’t stop me from loving it. As I’ve said before, I’m a sucker for movies about witchcraft, so it’s hard to remain objective when my heartstrings are being fiddled. This is one of the most glorious, straight-faced, stupid pieces of shit I have ever seen.

Heidi (Sheri Moon Zombie, who else?) is a shock-jock radio personality who plays whatever the hell she wants over Salem’s airwaves. In another segment of the show, she and her co-hosts interview locals who coincidentally specialize in the very subjects relating to the film’s plot. Nifty, huh? During these needlessly chatty scenes, the performers seem so disconnected from each other you begin to wonder if their closeups were filmed in isolation tanks. It’s really weird, but Zombie is no stranger to confusing filmmaking.

What’s weirder is a naked witch (Meg Foster) frequently watches Heidi from the shadows of her curiously empty apartment building. These strange happenings begin when Heidi receives a mysterious record, the music of which makes her feel nauseous and sleepy. When she broadcasts the record from the radio station, several more women across Salem experience the same trance-like effects. Thankfully, a witchcraft historian (Bruce Davison, who gives the best performance in the entire picture) realizes the music is much more than a droning tune and investigates the matter further. All the while, Heidi is falling deeper and deeper under the witch’s spell.

I’m not sure why I feel the need to tread lightly in regards to spoilers. Not much of it makes a lick of sense anyway, so what can possibly be spoiled? I will say I loved Judy Geeson, Patricia Quinn, and Dee Wallace Stone in this movie. The veteran actresses deliver the kind of stuff you rarely see in horror movies, but always want to see.

The usual pop cultural references to Rob Zombie’s childhood are in full effect, while the list of cameos (from Barbara Crampton to Clint Howard) reads like the guest list at a star-studded horror convention. If you’re more of a fan of modern horror, you’re probably not going to like this movie much. Scratch that—if you’re a human being, you’re probably not going to like this movie. I imagine there’s a very small demographic of moviegoers who are going to appreciate it. And you know what? That makes it all the more special.

When you assume a primitive understanding of early internet technology and have characters saying things like, “it’s a mainframe computer company,” I’m in hog heaven. Really. I saw this one on Pay-Per-View as a kid and rediscovered it today. It fits in well with the other 90s-era technophobic thrillers, such as Shocker, The Lawnmower Man, Virtuosity, and Brainscan.

A serial murderer, who the media calls The Address Book Killer, is on the loose. Early on, TWA employee Terry Munroe (Karen Allen) loses her address book. Even more predictable: the killer has acquired her contacts and plans on killing them one by one. On the way to the first address, he loses control of his car and plunges into a cemetery, cackling hysterically. Taken to the hospital in critical condition, a lightning storm strikes just as the killer dies in an MRI scanner, allowing his soul to enter the hospital computer system and the internet itself.

When Munroe realizes her acquaintances are dying in freak “accidents,” she teams up with disgraced computer hacker, Bram Walker (Chris Mulkey). Meanwhile, Munroe’s sex-obsessed son, tries to convince his babysitter to bare her breasts. The kid’s a con artist, a subplot which is forgotten almost as soon as it’s brought up. Arrested Development’s Jessica Walter plays the grandmother, which is pointless, but fun nonetheless.

The real fun begins when the movie would have us believe everything in the early 90s was already connected to the “world wide web,” including ATMs, traffic lights, curling irons, and microwave ovens. At one point the killer’s data-geist slips into Munroe’s house and targets the family dog. The dog is just lazing around, as dogs do, when the television plays a program which makes the dog so horny he hunches the coffee table. You don’t have to look too closely to see the string the filmmakers tied around the dog’s hips to accomplish this special effect.

I’m also a fan of director Rachel Talalay’s Freddy’s Dead and Tank Girl, the latter of which appears to have found a cult following. Ghost in the Machine is the film Talalay made between those two, which at first glance seems like a step down in absurdity. Then you get to the strange happenings, filmed Final Destination style, which concoct convoluted ways of putting the characters in danger. About fifty minutes in there’s a brilliant scene in a crash-test facility that’s so wild I laughed uncontrollably for several minutes. Later, there’s a dishwasher with a digital readout so it can notify the audience when it’s entering its “EXPLODE” and “DIE” cycles.

Talalay is clearly in on the joke here, but I’m not so sure her stars got the memo. Okay, I’m sure Allen and Mulkey knew it wasn’t Shakespeare, but there’s no winking at the camera, no hamming it up. I’m going to recommend this to anyone who appreciates fine cheese. My favorite part is when Munroe’s son elbow drops a ghost with reckless abandon.