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John Allman

If you’ve ever wandered the aisles at the video store or surfed the DVR pay-per-view options and seen a bunch of movies that you’ve never heard of, chances are John has watched them. Why? He loves movies. All kinds of movies. Good, bad, so-bad-they’re good, even the truly unwatchable ones. He mostly loves horror and science-fiction and drive-in exploitation movies that most upstanding model citizens wouldn’t dare watch. Then he writes up his thoughts so you can decide - watch, don’t watch or avoid at all costs. Sometimes he even gets to talk to the cool folks who make some of your favorite films.

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John Allman

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Ghost Machine

Posted Dec 29, 2009 by John Allman

Updated Dec 29, 2009 at 08:32 PM

Ghost Machine
Genre: Horror
Directed by: Chris Hartwill
Run time: 92 minutes
Rating: R
Format: DVD

The Lowdown: “Ghost Machine” is an interesting, almost-really good horror movie about what might happen if the paranormal and a Matrix-like cyberspace could possibly merge in the future.

The gist is this: Several young military soldiers converge on a former black-ops detention facility where terror suspects were housed, and tortured, as part of a U.S.-led rendition program following Sept. 11.

The soldiers regard the creepy, abandoned prison as a playground where they gather to play video games, get drunk and high and let loose from the stress.

Except one American soldier, Tom (Sean Faris, who looks and acts too much like he’s trying to mimic Tom Cruise), has a different plan. He introduces to the group a virtual simulator that can transport soldiers into a dreamlike hologram where they fight enemy troops, feeling the fear, anxiety and adrenaline, as if they were really in combat.

You know what happens to people in a horror movie who enter a virtual simulation of a life or death situation, right?

That’s right – bad doo doo happens.

The thing about “Ghost Machine,” though, is that it doesn’t happen nearly the way you expect. Yes, there’s the uber-creepy, insanely prolific killing terrorist ghost. But, she’s a girl. And the deaths, while expected, are still pretty cool. And there’s an actual backstory involving one of the evil military leaders that has a satisfying payoff.

So why doesn’t it come more highly recommended?

Because “Ghost Machine” doesn’t capitalize on the one truly original concept that it waits until the last 10 minutes of the movie to explain: That concept being that Tom, the American soldier, is actually there with the simulator to capture this particularly nasty girl terrorist ghost, whom they call Prisoner K, in order to hold her in cyberspace and unleash her as a virus into future wars when other countries try to battle the United States in virtual cyberspace to reduce physical casualties.

An entire movie about a band of elite military black-op soldiers entering a virtual simulator in order to actually capture a ghost to use later as a weapon is a pretty freakin’ original concept.

I wish more of “Ghost Machine” had been about that instead of four soldiers trying to battle something they didn’t understand or comprehend.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Hatla Williams, as Prisoner K, is deadly hot.
Nudity – Brief.
Gore – Yes.
Drug use – Yes.
Bad Guys/Killers – Cyber ghosts.
Buy/Rent – Rent it.
Release Date – Dec. 22, 2009