Even back in 2001 I knew how shitty this movie was going to be, and when all my friends went to see it, I passed. But here I am, almost ten years later, sitting down to watch it. I mostly blame my friend Duke who always goes on and on and on about how scary the ghosts were in this movie. Come on man, how can it be scary when they are  trying to pass off the number 13 as the letters TE? They don’t even look the same! And it’s not nearly as cool as when David Fincher did the whole number/ letter switcheroo thing with Se7en. Remember how often people used to do this and how confusing it was? Remember Halloween: H20? It had nothing to do with water. Goddamnit why do people do shit like this.

Behind you, Shannon Elizabeth! It’s the ghost of your career!

The film starts with some sort of ghost squad trying to capture a ghost. A member of that ghost squad? Matthew Lillard. Remember how wacky he was? And everyone, including him, thought he was going places? Well, the ghost squad captures a ghost and we quickly jump to see what’s going on with Tony Shalhoub. Yup, Monk himself. Who is his daughter? Shannon Elizabeth. How could anything that lived in Tony Shalhoub’s balls ever create something as hot as Shannon Elizabeth? Anyways, the ghost squad leader had all these captured ghosts in his house, but he dies, and his closest living relative was Tony Shalhoub. So Tony Shalhoub, Shannon Elizabeth, and Matthew Lillard are all partying together and the ghosts start escaping. How many of them are there? 12! With the 13th being a sacrifice. A TONY FUCKING SHALHOUB SACRIFICE. Ghosts run around, but you can only see them when you’re wearing special glasses, and Tony Shalhoub needs to save people, and Matthew Lillard dies. The end.

Look at the size of his mouth and how smarmy it is!

Considering this is a remake, the concept did seem a little hokey and dated. Not necessarily in a bad way, but it was definitely more gimmicky than actually scary. I guess it was kind of cool how each ghost had to fit a death archetype in order to unlock the gates of hell or whatever, but I don’t think anything about this movie could ever or will ever scare anyone. Watching these actors immediately transported to the turn of the millennium when these people had careers, and the only way this movie could have been better is if it ended at a Smash Mouth concert. Remember that movie Rat Race? That ended at a Smash Mouth concert. And Mr. Bean was in that. Man, things were really weird ten years ago. Whatever, this movie wasn’t scary, but at least it was a somewhat clever idea.

Wolfman Moon Scale