Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
Arthur and his two children inherit his uncle's estate: a glass house that serves as a prison to twelve ghosts. When the family, accompanied by a nanny and an attorney, enter the house they find themselves trapped inside an evil machine 'designed by the Devil and powered by the dead' to open the Eye of Hell. Aided by a ghost hunter and his rival, a ghost rights activist out to set the ghosts free, the group must do what they can to get out of the house alive.
Thir13en Ghosts is a remake of William Castle's 1960 film, and while it dresses up its premise with an elaborate mythology and striking production design — the glass-etched Latin, the elaborate ghost backstories — the plot is thin and mechanical, essentially a series of chase sequences through corridors. The acting is serviceable at best, with Tony Shalhoub doing earnest work as the father but most supporting players delivering stock horror-movie performances. The cinematography and production design are genuinely the film's strongest suit: the glass house is visually inventive and the ghost designs are memorably grotesque and creative. However, the film is fundamentally a slick late-90s/early-2000s horror remake with limited originality, and the ending resolves through convenient self-sacrifice without much earned emotional weight. A stylish but hollow genre exercise.