GHOST TOWN (1988)

Remember that one time you went on vacation with your family to Tombstone, Arizona, or Dodge City, Kansas, and just after finishing your "Buffalo Bill Burger Blast" you went outside and caught the noontime showdown in the street between those two guys in the really bad beards shooting each other with blank pistols whose gunfire seemed to be coming out of the crackling speakers behind you instead of the deadly instruments grasped in their hands?

That's Ghost Town, in a nutshell, with costume store make-up. It is glorified dinner theater with a horror bent and a budget slightly higher than the one possessed by those people who put a little too much effort into their front lawn Halloween displays. And of course, there's obviously nothing wrong with this, because Ghost Town, despite its obviously low budget, its lack of anyone with name recognition (beyond Bruce Glover), and its somewhat restrained use of visual effects (how many times "ghosts" disappear/reappear on screen after a while becomes hilarious), remains an infinitely watchable film, perfect for those late nights when you don't want to surrender to sleep just yet, but you don't want to watch anything heavy. It's Ghost Town, all the way.

What's refreshing about Ghost Town (and unlike many other Charles Band productions) is that everyone on screen knows they're making something silly, yet everyone is sincerely giving it their all. Not every performance is Day-Lewis caliber, but obviously that doesn't matter, because even though the film revolves around a hapless deputy wandering into a ghost town in the middle of the desert and stumbling upon a collection of ghosts, skeletons, and people trapped in time, every member of the cast does admirable work, including the Michael Bay lookalike lead character of Langley, played by Franc Luz.

With a typically quirky story by, at one time, go-to Full Moon Pictures auteur David Schmoeller (interviews with him here and here), Ghost Town is charmingly innocent and not the least bit pretentious. Band became a producer infamous for not only low budget horror, but low budget trash horror, which has only gotten worse over the years, so to see his name affiliated with a project built on good intentions of just trying to tell an old fashioned story is not only surprising but welcoming. Except for the icky ghost make-up exhibited by some of the on-screen ghouls, and a few moments of bullet carnage, Ghost Town isn't terribly violent, either. (It also exhibits the most restrained and tasteful allusion to ghost rape probably ever.) Its tone goes for serious but light at the same time, and except for a moment of side-boob, Ghost Town feels like something to put on for the kids on Halloween night.

Ghost Town's "rules" get a little fuzzy as the film progresses: sometimes the characters Langley encounters are ghosts, sometimes living skeletons, and sometimes living folks (?) "trapped in time," and after a while it's hard to figure out what exactly is going on, and who is in danger of what (apparently those trapped in time can still die - again, or for the first time), but Ghost Town's intentions are pure enough that after a while none of this really matters. There's no denying that the film is patently stupid, but that's okay, because the amount of love that went into this production evens out its inherent stupidity, resulting in a good time.

Ghost Town is deliciously, lovingly, charmingly, and acceptably stupid. It's the perfect example of a title that would have fallen into obscurity in the years following its release just because of how odd, quirky, and somewhat kid-like it is...and let's not forget those visual tricks on the same level of a ghostly Unsolved Mysteries episode.

THE CONJURING 2 (2016)

Every time James Wan threatens to retire from the horror genre, it breaks my heart a little -- not to mention strikes more fear in me than all the ghosts and demons he's conjured (shut up) from his imagination. The horror genre never truly dies, despite what weirdos like to claim about the '90s, as there are always up-and-coming filmmakers and interesting indie horror films that will stand the test of time. However, so few consistent filmmakers come along that not only make great contributions to the genre, but make films that have the power to remind both critics and audiences that the horror genre is capable of being classy, well made, and even emotional.

I could rattle off a half-dozen horror filmmakers who have proven consistency with both quality and scares -- Ti West, Jim Mickle, Adam Wingard -- but no one is doing what James Wan is doing: straddling that line between satisfying mainstream audiences with films not too far outside their comfort zone while also finding ways to shock and scare horror-loving fandom who have seen all the tricks countless times before. (That last sentence makes me feel bad, so major hat tip to Mike Flanagan, who is doing the same thing.)

The Conjuring 2, like its predecessor, contains very little that hasn't been seen a dozen times already in films both classic and campy. We've seen the ghosts and the demons, we've heard the loud knocks in the middle of the night or the creepy children hiding in the darkness, and we've seen the power of God, harnessed by the mortal, vanquish these things back into the pit, but Wan has an uncanny ability to use these old tricks in clever new ways. The Conjuring 2 contains much of Wan's repertoire -- the clever use of editing giving creepy figures snapshot movements, the yellow-eyed demons, the unseen monster in the darkened corner -- but he's also got a whole bag of new tricks to try, and all of them work. The Crooked Man, for instance, doesn't quite feel as grounded as the rest of the ongoing terror, but its construction makes for the eeriest scene in the entire film. The Conjuring 2 is more ethereal, more dreamlike, more daring in its risk-taking. And it makes for a more satisfying experience with the Warrens.

What makes The Conjuring 2 stand out from the pack, and even from Wan's previously successful horror outings, is the relationship between Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), playing the real-life married couple who spent decades doing the kind of research that the franchise only touches on. As Wan says in the supplements, he wanted to create a love story for them but disguise it as a horror film, and in that regard he was successful. Like the first film, he takes the time out from the horror to offer them -- and the haunted Hodgson family -- small moments of peace. Scenes like Ed playing the guitar and singing an Elvis song to the family -- but really to Lorraine -- or even the ending, when Wan forgoes the anticipated creepy/shock final scene in favor of something lovely and beautiful, are what make The Conjuring 2 such a success. Putting aside how "real" and "true to life" the Conjuring series claims to be, the films, regardless of what you believe, also wholly exaggerate the stories that inspired them. However, in the midst of this, Wan's ability to make his characters feel like real people are what set the series off from the rest of the genre.

Avoiding the sophomore slump, The Conjuring 2 boasts a less clunky and more naturalistic screenplay than its predecessor, and with less characters to focus on, a bit more streamlined. Knowledge of the first film isn't required to enjoy the sequel, but by now the Warren dynamic and what they do is established and it helps in getting to the action a little quicker. Wilson and Farmiga -- especially the latter -- are fantastic in their roles, with Wilson toning down his take on Ed, making him less gruff than his prior iteration. The Hodgson family as well, led by mother Peggy (Frances O'Connor) and terrorized daughter Janet (Madison Wolfe, trying on a genuine sounding accent), are fleshed out into real people. The Conjuring 2's opener serves as a concluding bookend to the tease on which the first film ended -- that of the legendary Amityville controversy, which inspired the never-ending film series The Amityville Horror. (While it's a bummer not to have gotten an entire feature film dedicated to this particular case, I can understand the legal quagmire it would have the potential to become.) But the bits we do get -- the DeFeo massacre, which was a very real occurrence, and even an impressively simple recreation of perhaps the most famous photographic "evidence" of paranormal proof in the Amityville home -- are more satisfying than probably every officially sanctioned Amityville film so far.

Director of Photography Don Burgess successfully recreates the look of Wan's past collaborations with his former DP John R. Leonetti (who may or may not have been too busy directing the Conjuring spin-off Annabelle to join Wan for this second go-round with the Warrens). The presentation successfully recreates that look which is slowly becoming iconic for the Warrens' universe: a blue-hewing, bleached-white world where even during the daylight there's a detectable darkness. The interior of the Hodgson home, with its cracked walls and its busy but fading wallpaper, somehow adding desolation and subtly contributes to the claustrophobic horror the family begins to experience.

The Conjuring is among one of the scariest sounding films ever made, and The Conjuring 2 continues that trend. The film makes very effective use of the paranormal bumps in the night, and the requisite sounds of the genre are all accounted for: knocks on doors, thuds on floorboards, creepy child laughter...and the disembodied voice of the dead. As usual, the creepy score by Joseph Bishara (who has played the marquee demon in every James Wan film so far), complete with its whirling male choir, heightens the horror the characters are experiencing.

After the disappointment of Insidious 2, the most previous horror film from James Wan, the potential for capturing the class and effectiveness of The Conjuring didn't seem like a sure thing for its sequel. I'm happy to report that it's every bit as good as its original, and in some cases, even superior. Wan has sworn off horror films before (prior to making The Conjuring 2), and he's repeated that following its release, but here's hoping when it comes to the exploits of Ed and Lorraine Warren, he'll always make an exception. The Conjuring series prints money for Warner Bros., so more films will be made with or without him in the director's chair, but he and his screenwriters seemed to have cracked the code for making them so effectively horrific as well as realistic and emotionally involving.

THE HOUSE WHERE EVIL DWELLS (1982)

Long before the short-lived J-horror phenomenon breached American shores, resulting in one good remake and boatloads of bad ones, The House Where Evil Dwells was already proving that Japanese ghosts could be so, so entertaining. Best described as a bold-faced rip-off of The Shining attempting to coalesce with America's then-fascination with everything ninja, this 1982 oddity about an American family living abroad while its patriarch finishes writing his "story" - and who then confront a trio of hilarious looking ghosts  - has to be seen to be believed. Hopefully the included screen grabs have done a pretty good job of indicating the sheer stupidity on hand and have enticed some unaware lovers of cinema cheese into pursuing this title: how utterly mad The House Where Evil Dwells is willing to go is a thing that every horror fan needs to experience.

The opening of the film, in which a full-on sexy affair is taking place while the unknowing husband is out walking around holding his lantern thing you only ever see in movies set in Japan, does a pretty good but albeit strange job of establishing the conflict of the plot: after the cheating wife gives to her lover a netsuke (a small totem) that she obtained from a witch, and which seems to be of a woman fucking the devil, the husband comes home to see their tryst in full kimono-shedding mode, so he understandably flips out and kills them both before committing harakiri, which is suicide by blade, not the former sports newscaster. (You know, this guy.)

At this point - yep, you guessed it - our American characters enter the story, and the house where all this sexy murder stuff went down, and are immediately haunted by the aforementioned ghosts of an Asian flavor.

The House Where Evil Dwells is insane, lovingly pedestrian, and earnest in its stupidity. Its attempts to be horrific consist of blue-tinted superimposed ghosts walking around, knocking shit off the wall, or temporarily possessing our married couple characters solely to puppet them into saying really inappropriate things and cause marital distress. But what those silly ghost appearances set up, the screaming ghost faces appearing in soup, or the hilarious moaning haunted crabs that chase a young girl up a tree, definitely help to knock down.

What sucks about The House Where Evil Dwells - that is, beyond the typical kind of suck you come to expect from very low-budget horror flicks - is its pace. To be honest, unless ghostly things are occurring, The House Where Evil Dwells isn't really that interesting. It's slow, and dull, and momentarily brought to life by okay performances (unless we're talking about the daughter character, who's at her least offensive when she's not saying a word). If blue ghosts are egging each other on to commit harm or tomfoolery, then great; otherwise, The House Where Evil Dwells is boredom on celluloid. Still, it's a house where I'd want to spend all my time where I'm probably shooing demon crabs out of my nagaya with my bamboo houki.

Fans of campy and "oops, it's stupid!" horror entertainment shouldn't miss it, or else moaning ghost faces will end up in your soup, and they will be so awful.

ECHOES (2016)

Anna (Kate French), a blogger who has been offered her first screenwriting assignment, is struggling to get a workable draft to her manager (and lover), Paul (Steven Brand), so Paul suggests they abscond to his house in the desert to give her a change of scenery and perhaps a bout of inspiration. There only a day, Paul announces that he has to leave to go deal with a client, and Anna suggests she stay behind, hoping that her isolation will force her to be productive. Without a car, and with Paul's dog, Shadow, her only company, Anna tries to do just that, but instead begins to suffer from increasingly worsening instances of the nightmares she's been having for a while now - that of an ash-faced figure with black eyes. With each new visitation from his demon figure, she is left with a new piece of the puzzle, so Anna begins to follow the trail of clues until she pieces together the mystery of her haunting - and what she discovers might have best been left undiscovered.

Echoes, simply put, doesn't really work - not as a ghost film, not as a mysticism film, and not as a murder mystery film. It really wants to be all three, but because of the time it has to share among those other sub-genres, all of them are left feeling unfinished and obligatory. What's suggested by the film's opener - someone haunted by sleep paralysis, a genuinely fascinating phenomenon - is abandoned nearly immediately after in favor of more waking-nightmare/possession nonsense that audiences have seen so many times before.

Speaking of things audiences have seen before, it would appear that writer/director Nils Timm has certainly seen The Conjuring, being that more than one visual trick is stolen from James Wan's surprise 2013 shocker. From flapping sheets revealing ghostly forms to black-eyed monsters possessing their victims, so much of Echoes has been done before and in far better ways that its title is actually perfectly ironic.

One of Kate French's eyebrows alone is sexier than any screenwriter I've ever seen, so her casting as such is dubious at best, and shameless at worst. As a lead she's merely competent, although the script doesn't demand she do much beyond look scared or take sad sit-down showers. Her constant appearances in tight tank tops or skintight exercise pants do more to show off why she was cast than anything having to do with her range as a performer. Alternately, Steven Brand offers up a nice performance as Paul. At first the audience isn't sure what to make of him, but he's likable and charming, and proves to offer the most defined character and solid performance in what is admittedly a small and intimate film with less than a handful of speaking parts.

Echoes brings nothing new to the table, but perhaps it will bring more attention to the phenomenon of sleep paralysis. Leafing through its Wiki entry is infinitely more intriguing and entertaining than anything that Echoes has to offer. Even the most die-hard aficionado won't feel the need to add Echoes to their collection. It's a bland and generic story that jumps from one overused trope to the next, none of which is as satisfying as what the summary promises. Sleep paralysis, also known as Old Hag Syndrome, is a strange ailment affecting an alarmingly high number of people, and has slowly become more and more common knowledge over the years - a shame that the film did away with the concept after an intriguing opening. Echoes is a rental at best.

EVEN A FEW MURDERS

BACKTRACK (2016)

The ghost film is my weakness. It's one I will always go out of my way to watch, regardless of pedigree or budget, because I am endlessly fascinated by the supernatural. If I were a human being still capable of actually feeling fear, instead of having been dulled by a steady diet of horror films since I was in elementary school, you might say ghost films come the closest to providing me with a handful of reasonable scares. And that makes sense--that of the more metaphysical sub-genre, the ghost film rides the closest alongside the idea of life, most certainly death, and perhaps something beyond it. The concept of ghosts and haunted houses still pervade so much of our pop culture. Even the Travel Channel has built an audience of millions off their only popular program, "Ghost Adventures," the tie that binds ghost-hunting to traveling being that the hosts often get in a van and drive somewhere.

It's rare when a good ghost film is released. And unless James Wan is directing, chances are those good ghost films aren't at the multiplex, but rather somewhere hovering in the ether between VOD and direct-to-video. Much like any other genre, but especially horror, there's a reason why you've never heard of most titles found on page 37 of Netflix's streaming titles. So much bad horror is released in one calendar year that it's almost staggering. It's also sad, because so many of these so-called filmmakers aren't trying to make a film. They're assembling 90 minutes of forward momentum and spending most of their budgets on the Photoshopped cover that does its best to shield the fact that the film isn't even worth falling asleep to.

Somewhere between this Redbox fodder and James Wan resides filmmaker Michael Petroni's Backtrack, an Australian-produced supernatural mystery that offers up a handful of fine performances, an intriguing concept, and even a few well-timed and well-staged scares that actually border on frightening. Make no mistake that Backtrack is very aware of its influences, taking most of its DNA from The Sixth Sense, but it goes about it in the freshest way possible: that the patients of Brody's Peter Bower are actually ghosts isn't a twist that's saved for third-act reveal (obviously this factoid is included in the home video release's official synopsis anyway), but rather it's something discovered early on which kicks the main conflict into gear.

Brody, too, seems aware of the influence of Shyamalan's still-best film, as he likely realized he was also playing a sad psychologist a little too close to the dead. Brody, strapping on a serviceable Australian accent, is very calm, stoic, sad, and still in his performance, but not in a way that's boring to watch. He's supposed to be playing a man barely holding it together following the death of his daughter, for which he blames himself, and it's reflected in his every scene, during which he always seems moments away from bursting into tears.

The beloved Sam Neill makes scattershot appearances as Bower's own psychologist, looking pretty distinguished in a rounder face and full beard, though the motives of his character are unclear and never fully explained, leaving his presence in the film somewhat unsatisfactory.

 Above all, writer/director Michael Petroni didn't want to make a horror film so much as  a film about life that just happened to contain elements more commonly found in genre films. He tried something similar with a previous film, Till Human Voices Wake Us, which could likely be used as a litmus test to determine if Backtrack is for you. Again, like The Sixth Sense, Backtrack vies to be something more than just a ghost film. It wants to be about life, regret, the significance of the past, and the pain of memories. It does all those things quite well, marrying it to a traditional mystery propelled by supernatural elements (and no lie, the use of "ghosts" in the film are definitely eerie), but what it results in feels a little too similar, however well made it may be.

Despite being a ghost movie, which, yes, does allow for a few jump scares here and there, Backtrack is actually kind of a quiet film. The dread and sadness dwell in the silent corners of every scene in which Bower appears, complemented by a melancholy score by composer Dan Cornelius. Backtrack is the kind of film whose strength comes from the quiet rather than screaming ghosts.

Backtrack is a horror film (kind of) for adults. What this means is that it's not interested in using ghosts to constantly scare the audience, but rather to make our lead character tap into his subconscious to determine why he is seeing them in the first place. Ghosts are used as a concept but not a catalyst. And, is Peter Bower seeing ghosts for real? Or ghosts from his past that won't let him rest until he confronts the memories he's long since buried? If you're looking for a straightforward haunt film, keep walking, but if you're up for something a little different and a little more mature, then give Backtrack a try.

SWALLOWED WHOLE BY A MONSTER

"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone."