Thirteen Ghosts (2001)

Stylized appallingly as Thir13en Ghosts, I’d only ever heard bad things about this remake of the 1960 film (I haven’t seen that one, for what it’s worth). I went into it knowing next to nothing, other than the presence of Tony Shaloub and Matthew Lilliard - Monk and Shaggy, basically. 
It’s got a pretty standard starter plot, where a grieving family inherit a house and find out that, ooooh, it’s haunted. Thankfully there’s more to it than that - the ghosts have interesting stories implied and the house itself is more of a machine than anything. Lilliard gives a typically elastic performance, and it’s loads of fun. Oh Matthew Lilliard, you distinctive, distinctively mannered man. The whole movie is actually pretty self aware and self effacing, with a great balance of darkness and light. 
I’m always going to go easier on a movie that has a whole section of dialogue about hunting ghosts, to which someone else responds “goats?”. I loved the cheesy gore effects like you would not believe, but if you're looking for realism you should not be watching a movie containing vomitting ghosts and Psychic Specs. Of course, it doesn’t get forgiven for everything. It struggles to find the right pacing from the beginning, and one of the characters is a blatant, unfunny, racist stereotype in a way that is poorly constructed and lazily written. Thankfully, she at least survives the movie. They’re not that lazy.
Rating: 6.5/10 - Technically, this movie is lacking in lots of areas, but it makes up for it with the amount of fun it is for me. 

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