Customer Reviews

Ghost Machine

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(22)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This is the first DVD that Amazon Vine has ever offered me... and I was thrilled that it was horror. I should have known by the fact that I've never heard of it, that it was a B movie at best. Now I love my B movies... but usually they have a high cheese factor that I enjoy.

Short Summary - Some geeky army computer dudes have a sort of simulator that they decide to take to a haunted jail on their day off to play sim-army. But a ghostie gets in the machine and seeks revenge.

Poor Acting, poor dialog, bad makeup and editing, are all forgivable in your standard B movie... but what is NOT forgivable is the dullness of the whole film. Sure the costumes looked like they came from the Halloween emporium and the guns were amusing at best, the textures were wrong and the men had on more makeup then the women... all of that is tolerable as well in a B movie... but what makes this movie sink as a B film (because it's certainly not an A list) is the fact that it is to drawn out in the wrong parts... namely the boring parts last too long and the exciting parts are too sparse.

Script - C

Plot - B

Acting - C

Directing - F

Fun Factor - C

Pacing - F

If you catch it on the SyFy Channel you might as well watch it but don't expect much from it. I wouldn't pay to see this.

A military special ops team (the DVD cover says U.S., but that's not the impression I got) that trains with a high-tech virtual reality program and corresponding equipment decides to have a fun gaming weekend with the gear in an old, empty prison. As it turns out though, the prison holds the ghost of a female terrorist who was tortured to death, and she is determined to kill anyone she encounters. Being a ghost, she is helpless to do so, until the virtual reality machine gives her the power. Like Freddy Krueger, she is able to harm the soldiers in their dreamlike state, and ulterior motives of the game developer only make matters worse as the team fights for its lives and tries figure out how to get back to the real world.

"Ghost Machine", a 2009 sci-fi/horror flick directed by Chris Hartwill, is a pretty decent film for its kind. It's better than what you would normally see on Sci-Fi channel, but not big screen quality. The effects are good enough, the story is interesting, the characters and acting is all fair. It's nothing exceptional these days, but it keeps you interested if it's the type of story you like. I'm not big on military stuff, but this was more about virtual reality getting out of control. Their aren't many characters and they are different enough not to get confused, which is good in a horror film focusing on soldiers. The tech-guy who created the game (played by Sean Faris), incidentally, comes off totally as a Tom Cruise character, in my opinion, looking and acting more and more like him as the film progressed (the character is even named Tom!). It seems a conscious choice by the filmmakers, but who knows. It's kinda funny though. I didn't find the ghost all that horrifying/ghostly, but I guess I'd use the word "acceptable". However, the one thing that really bugged me about this film was the ending. It was one of those films that doesn't give you a definite ending, and that annoys me. I guess it could have been worse, but still, that tactic has been way overdone already. In this particular case, it was an interesting ending, but still an unsatisfying cliffhanger.

The DVD holds an interview with the writer, a behind the scenes featurette, and the film trailer. It's a nice little selection of good supplements. Of course, there could have been a lot more, commentary at least, but that would have just held up my review even longer and it's not like this film is a classic or blockbuster or something. My recommendation is to get this one only if you are really into the subject matter or one of the stars (Rachael Taylor of Transformers and Luke Ford of Mummy 3 also play big roles). You could do worse for sure, but be prepared for one of those aggravating endings that leaves you hanging.

As soon as I saw a trailer for Stan Helsing on the DVD, I lowered my expectations, and hoped Ghost Machine would be much better.

The movie starts with a female prisoner being dragged into an interrogation cell, then it flashes forward 9 years to some techies working on a combat simulation program for the military. You don't find out what happened to the prisoner, until flashbacks later in the movie. As the prisoner was tortured to death, her spirit seeks revenge, using the computer to make kills that have a lasting effect in the real world (think of Stay Alive meets Soldier ).

I was surprised at how weak the acting was. I've seen previous work from the cast (which was pretty good), so I'm assuming they had must have had a lousy script and/or a bad director to deal with.

In addition to the drab dialogue, the sound quality was horrible. I cranked my sound system, and still had trouble hearing the actors, but the sound effects blasted out. I can think of dozens of no-budget B-movies with better sound production.

I can't believe it was over 30 minutes into the movie before it got interesting. however, the second half of the movie was far better than the first half, once the supernatural action began. (That's the only reason I gave it 3 stars instead of 2.) They should have spent less time with the techies conversations, and had more scenes with the torture spirit.

The ending was kind of a cliche twist, but not too bad.

Science fiction with some horror combined neither of which are done very well. Not awful but not something I would watch again. There is a lot of action. It isn't scary. CGI effects were poor. I thought by the description it sounded pretty good but it just goes to show you you can't judge a book by it's cover (or description).

Oh wow! I've been thinking what to write here, but in doing that I'd be giving away the movie.....and that's something I'd never do. What I'll say is that this a movie I'd say to watch on a movie channel or when it's on a regular channel (with commercials).

The best I can sum the movie up is you take a "nerdy" or "geeky" computer whiz and mix in SIMS game that people actually to into, then add in a ghost and you have the movie. Oh, also add in LOUD, LOUD gunfire (like how TV tends to put commercials louder than the actual show)and a lot of blood and people wiggling in pain. There you have the movie. I'd say it's a blend of horror and sci-fi and a bit of fantasy.

I really had high expectations on this movie. Granted it's not the best cover. However reading about it, I felt this movie has potential. Sadly I was wrong.

In the kinder, gentler Army of the future, the military gets a hold of what appears to be the next generation of full immersion, cyber-reality gaming. After a quick demonstration in which a female Special Forces soldier - Jess (Rachael Taylor) - gets virtually blown up, the system gets shut down for the night. With connections inside a decrepit prison, the boys head off for a night weekend of gaming debauchery. Beer, booze, and a setting where former terrorists were allegedly tortured sets the stage for a night of gaming that makes the combination of Halo, Call of Duty, and Soldier of Fortune look like Pong.

Replete with motion detector sensors that allow the system to digitally map the prison rooms into a virtual combat zone, and modifiable like the hacked versions of Doom, the game can potentially translate dream or virtual actions into reality. Bad sign number one. When annoying computer tech Tom (Sean Faris) "accidentally" uploads an "anomaly" into the system, and fails to inform the others that the sim-combat program has more bugs than the first release of Windows Vista, the terror threat level goes from "Severe - Red" to a much worse "Oh Snap! - Purple." Bad sign number two.

The setting and pacing are fairly well done, even though the sensor setup nearly destroyed the first act. The battle simulations are intense. Along with a few torture scenes, head shots galore create a good blend of blood splatter and action. Being inside the game is portrayed in an exhilarating manner, even though the concept of virtual reality to that level has been explored ad nauseum, and a computer ghost has been done poorly before (twice). Unfortunately for this film, however, none of the characters are likeable and only Rachael Taylor displays talent that doesn't require a CTRL-ALT-DELETE. Faris in particular is bad, in his poor man's Ben Affleck impersonation (you read that right), taking the theme of the movie a bit too far with his binary range of emotions - mostly zeroes.

A predictable ending rounds out the action on this somewhat clichéd, unoriginal, horror sci-fi time waster. Hardcore sci-fi fans and gaming junkies may enjoy this, but most others will probably be disappointed.

Jason Elin

This premise of this movie was rather simpleton, notwithstanding this simplistic movie was surrounded by unnecessary and lagging plot devices. It also seemed like two or three movies smashed together, say "The Lawnmower Man" and any "Nightmare on Elm Street" movie, with a dash of "Rambo". The plot is that a bunch of friends who are serving in the British military (I am pretty darn sure it was British since everyone in the film, save Sean Faris, had a British accent) meet up in a condemned prison in order to enjoy some realistic virtual reality gaming. Well matters become rather complex when people begin dying in real life after they meet their demise in the game by a ghost.

The movie had more things going against it, than for it. To start off with, the first forty-five minutes are painfully slow and not engaging at all. I almost turned the flick off more than once. Albeit the second half wasn't too bad, but by the time it came, I didn't care. Most of this movie took place in a condemned prison. So if a place is condemned, would there be a need for a guard? Well in this movie the guard happens to be one of the center characters and lets most of the military friends in so they could play their game.

The main characters are Sean Faris, the only character with an American accent and looks a lot like a young Tom Cruise, Luke Ford who is a little better than his nauseating performance in the "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" and Rachael Taylor who is probably the best performer in the film. The characters for the most part are flat and by the time any development of character happens, again I didn't care.

The ghost in this movie is played by a woman and sadly her name escapes me at the moment. I praise her performance; she did a good job as a creepy phantasm with unfinished business. It isn't really the norm to see a woman in this type of role, it was sort of refreshing.

Nevertheless, the movie used many horror movie stereotypes and hides them with an unneeded conduit to the military, characters that were rather lackluster, virtual reality that mocked a third person shooting video game and again the story took way too long to get going. In other words, this movie had potential but sadly it fall flat on its face, hard.

Darn them silly Virtual Reality people. Don't they understand that virtual baddies always find their way into your sims? Or that an Evil Artificial Intelligence will always trump the goofy stoner geeks or super soldiers in the simulation? Didn't anyone watch eXistenZ, Stay Alive or even Gamer? If not, here's "Ghost Machine," another variation on the "You die in the game, you die for real" genre.

This time, it's an international mix of British/Irish and Americans who are looking for new computerized thrills. Sean Farris is Tom, the snarky yank who is on overseas loan to develop the most realistic war game possible, Luke Ford is Vic, the geeky gamer who has the hots for Rachel Taylor, one of the soldiers involved in the war simulator experiment. However realistic the simulator may be, Tom and his buddies want it to be even wilder. So why not take the high-tech sim-creation mapping devices into a spooky old prison? And why stop there? Let's sneak in that this creepy lock-up was secretly used after 9/11 for rendition, and that a notorious female prisoner was killed here while undergoing torture?

Oh, and that angry tortured-to-death hottie? She is really mad. Like "I will take over this game and wreak vengeance on the world" P-O'd. As soon as she realizes that there's some fresh meat in town and she can hack into the system, she's good to go. She probably wasn't what Sting had in mind when he was working on Ghost In The Machine, but then again, our group of gamers should have known better than to take the super top secret government project off-site and make a giant arcade out of an old torture chamber. Or at least they should have installed Norton Anti-Virus.

"Ghost Machine" is an average time waster. The effects are better than average and the acting is decent. There's nothing new here, or that you haven't seen done better (or in the case of "Stay Alive," worse).

In Ghost Machine, four high-tech gamers with access to military-grade equipment set up a simulation in an old prison (or factory... but more organized like an old prison). They put on their virtual reality helmets, and are "transformed", Matrix-style, into a scenario with lots of bad guys to shoot. But something happened a decade ago. In the post 9-11 terrorist sweeps, a young woman is captured, brought to this location, and tortured to death. Ick. Somehow, her energy (her "ghost") is still there, and it wants revenge. One of the gamers is intent on capturing the ghost, while the others, and a couple of later visitors, just want to survive.

Well, I wish the acting was better. But it was suspenseful! And all four adults watching it groaned at the end... "So what just happened?" The movie does end abruptly. And fancy weapons with spotting scopes mounted on the barrels may look neat, but the scopes are dead weight in an indoor, dark environment. So no one really ever sighted down the barrel. Oh, Hollywood.

Any of this sound familiar? Things that happen during virtual reality sessions have a way of affecting that person sitting on the safe couch. The laws of physics don't have to apply in virtual reality environments. And the military has way too much equipment on their hands.

Slow start, but lots of thrills and chills.

Ghost Machine is a nasty evil gory film, and for lovers of the genre, that is probably enough to suggest watching this movie.

The screenwriter and author of the book this film is based on, talks about how this film honors Special Forces and adds a twist in recognizing a strong woman, Jess, as the lead Special Forces soldier. He saw this film as a very serious undertaking, that it exposes some powerful themes. I think the author loved his book very much, and I'm not sure I totally agree with his premise. After all, the commander, Taggert, of the Special Forces unit is a horrible person, creeping up on her in the shower and then trying to rape Jess. But Jess is a commanding force. And the ghost did manage to survive being tortured, albeit she survives in the afterlife.

The film starts off fairly innocently, looking a lot like Call of Duty, typical soldiers fighting an invisible foe. The video ends abruptly and we realize this was a simulation. The had simulation guy, Tom, played by Sean Faris, rants on and on about how the sim blends thoughts with reality and the participant no longer knows the difference. There's a whole diatribe about how you enter the sim and exit it, how there are safety releases everywhere and the sim is safe. Obviously, that's our first clue that something horrible will go wrong. Tom and his amiable Australian friend, Vic, grab up all the hardware they can and meet up to play this sim game in an abandoned prison. That's when all hell breaks loose.

Not only does the author believe he is honoring women and Special Forces, he also has some scientific research that suggests the type of immersion simulation is really possible. It seems that Sven Hughes is a true believer in this film.

The major problem I had with this film was following the logic. The sim seemed to break its own rules frequently. It was hard to follow exactly how somebody got in and out of the sim. And then what logic was followed from there. Horror films have to create their own set of rules and then follow them up to the gory end. Suspense has to be built and then surprise events have to happen that scare the viewer. Unfortunately the surprise moments just came at silly random times and weren't really scary at all.

Strange Days is an infinitely better film about exactly this same sim concept (Strange Days. I will never forget the horror of somebody watching their own murder. That film used the technology concept, but didn't beat the viewer over the head with it. Ghost Machine seemed to be all about fancy computer graphics and the technology itself, not really the human side of the dilemma.

I particularly disliked Sean Faris as Tom. It's a strange coincidence that his name is Tom, since I thought he was channeling Tom Cruise throughout this film. The channeling was a very bad Tom Cruise at that. From the way he talked, to his movements, to his trying to be Mr. Pretty Boy that is dumb but likes big words he doesn't understand; he oozed Mr. Cruise. On the other hand, Rachel Taylor as Jess, was amazing. She is a beautiful woman, strong, and confident. Although the director grabbed an R rating for about every third word being the F bomb; he didn't stoop to Rachel exposing her lovely body. The other surprise was Baby Huey like Vic played by Luke Ford. He was just innocent enough, just young enough, and just smart enough to be likeable. And there seemed a natural chemistry with Jess. And it must be noted that the gorgeous Halla Vilhjálmsdóttir is made up and completely covered as Prisoner K, so sad that we didn't get to see more of her.

This is a disturbing film. It is rated R, for strong language, brutal torturing, and a lot of blood splattering. On and yes, there is a fairly extended scene of herbal cigarette smoking. Yes this is a film for mature audiences, and not at all recommended for younger viewers.

At an hour and and twenty eight minutes, it is a little long. The film takes a long time to get going. Way too much time was spent setting up the 'sensors' to start up the sim. To me the director didn't know how to pace the action and non-action very well.

The DVD includes two bonus features. The first is a ten minute interview with Sven Hughes, author and screen writer. It's a telling interview and changed my view of the film somewhat. The last is a thirty minute making of featurette. Surprisingly, this featurette is good. There isn't too much of the actor retelling the story, just enough. But there's some nice insight into the actual prison where the filming took place. Sean Faris even adds some spookiness to the killing room in the prison. In the time of all the same silly making of featurettes, this one was surprising.

I wasn't a huge fan of this film, mostly because the genre doesn't work for me very well. However, there was something in here that a lover of this kind of film might enjoy. I don't think this is a universal film, one that many people will appreciate. Contrary to the author's belief, this is not a date movie. But there is a niche of people that will enjoy this film. Strange Days might be an excellent second course after this film.