Ghosts of Goldfield (2007)

Memorable, crazy movie

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Five young filmmakers go to the deserted Goldfield Hotel in Nevada in hopes of filming Elizabeth (Ashly Margaret Rae) the wife of the owner of the hotel whose spirit roams the halls looking for her lost baby. Her affair with a bartender (Roddy Piper) leads to a baby that her husband George Winfield (Chuck Zito) had killed along with Elizabeth. The crew searches the halls acting like school kids rather than a documentary crew with the ghost sliding past and all around them. Two members of the crew Mike (Richard Chance) and Keri (Amano) seem to think the reason they are there is to party, flirt and hang out being completely unaware that they are in a haunted hotel and what their mission is. Group leader Julia (Patterson) quickly realizes her Grandmother may have had something to do with the death of Elizabeth and the group can't escape outside the hotel. Decent Direction by Edwin Winfield and excellent cinematography by Adrian M. Pruett and Roland "Ozzie" Smith cannot disguise the terrible screenplay by Dominic Biondi and story by Brian McMahon. This is a shame because the filmmakers are quite talented and make the most of the location. The story is by the numbers and when you add two of the most annoying characters (Mike & Keri) a horror film has seen in a long time, the film can't overcome it. The dialog is absurd and downright laughable at times. The filmmakers create a good atmosphere only to have it ruined by stupid actions of the characters. There still manages to be a few scares and some gore thrown in but the relentlessly bad script keeps sinking any momentum the film gets going. A lot of talent behind the camera is wasted. It seems pretty clear this team could have made a good low budget horror film with real pay offs if they had any kind of script to work with.

I decided to rent this movie mainly because Roddy Piper was in it. In the past, he has appeared in some very enjoyable movies, and I thought this effort might be another one. Sadly, Roddy is not one of the main characters, and not only is he unrecognizable, he doesn't get to do that much here.The rest of the movie is even worse. It appears that the movie only spent money on the digital camera and a few other technical pieces of equipment, because hardly anything resembling "production values" appears on screen. It just seems that the movie had access to a bar and an abandoned building, and wrote a screenplay that could use those locations without bringing in anything else. As a result, the movie looks extremely cheap, not helped by poor lighting and goofs like the shadow of the boom mike appearing on a wall in the background.But what's worse is the extremely slow pace. It takes forever for the characters to realize they are in jeopardy, and once they realize this, they don't do the logical thing like get out of there. In short, there is absolutely nothing here to justify giving the movie a look.

I saw nothing than bad reviews about Ghosts Of Goldfield. Indeed, that title is more like a western instead of a horror so they changed it in Europe to Paranormal Ghost to make use of the success of the "Paranormal" word. Naturally that isn't enough so they made use of the title "Twilight" as coming from the movie Twilight, Kellan Lutz. If you have seen my review on the Twilight trilogy then you know it's in my top 5 of worst flicks ever. So that was no reference for me. Another name that I notice was Roddy Piper. If I put the word Rowdy between then I guess you know that I'm talking about the Hall Of Fame from the WWE. I had no problem with his acting like so many had, I know him from his WWF period in the eighties, screaming and very aggressive. He do appears sometimes in the new WWE world and here in this flick, I thought he did it well, hoped I could say that from the other actors too. Some you really see acting, sadly, Mandy Amano is number one on that list. The scene about the rat in the bar, so bad acting. She is also the only one who goes nude but there's nothing to see for the Kleenex boys out there. It's funny that Paranormal Ghosts started off pretty well. And it even had some blood in the first minutes but after a while the ghost appears in real life and it all becomes a bit dull. There's a lot of talking and suggesting that the ghost is there but when the red stuff comes in it's all to late. The ending is predictable and so it's not all that ghostly as it should be. The version I have is 18+ well if someone can tell why please do so. You can sit through it easily with your family just before the children TV starts. Nevertheless, due the good beginning of the film and the decapitation scene I give it a 4.

Five college students - sensitive Julie (Marnette Patterson, the sole decent actress in the film), nice guy Chad (Kellan Lutz), jerky Mike (Richie Chance), nerdy Dean (Scott Whyte), and bitchy Kerri (Mandy Amano) -- go to Goldfield, Nevada to make a documentary on ghosts. The quintet check out an old rundown hotel that's haunted by the angry and unrestful spirit of Elizabeth (ravishing Ashley Rae), who was murdered by her cuckolded husband George Winfield (Chuck Zito) a long time ago. Director Ed Winfield, working from an extremely talky, hackneyed and uneventful script by Dominic Biondi, lets the pace crawl along at an excruciatingly sluggish rate and fails to develop any much-needed tension or momentum. Moreover, the bulk of the characters are highly irritating and obnoxious chowderheads who elicit zero sympathy from the viewer. One quite simply doesn't give a fig whether these hateful tools live or die. The largely poor acting rates as another significant flaw, with Chance copping the grand booby prize for his profoundly grating portrayal of the grossly unappealing Mike. The lousy dialogue, consisting mostly of the usual profanities, is downright painful to hear at times. The grindingly predictable story doesn't help matters any. Ditto the generic shuddery score, chintzy (less than) special effects, tacky gore (the spurting blood looks like fruit punch), and lackluster cinematography. Roddy Piper is wasted as a gruff and unfriendly local bartender. The key problem with this film is that it's awfully slow and long-winded; the plot takes forever to get going and by the time the narrative finally peps up in the last third you're too numb with boredom to care. Worse yet, there isn't even any gratuitous female nudity to be seen during the token soft-core sex scene. Not even the downbeat ending can redeem this dud. A total wash-out.