I Watch Films: Thirteen Ghosts

 

13 Ghosts

Cyrus Zorba works at the museum; unfortunately it doesn’t pay enough and all his furniture is removed from his apartment to the dismay of his family; wife Hilda, teen daughter Medea* and annoying 12-year-old-give-or-take son Buck. It’s Buck’s birthday and they have cake and buck gets a book of ghost stories. Buck wishes on his candles that they could have a house and furniture of their own. There’s a knock at the door, it turns out Cyrus’s uncle Plato has left him his fully-furnished house.

As ever with these sort of inheritances there are drawbacks. The lawyer, Ben Rush, explains; they can’t sell the house or furnishings and these include the twelve ghosts that Plato collected from around the world. There’s also a housekeeper who the family believe to be a witch, mostly because she’s played by Margaret Hamilton, who played The Wicked Witch Of The West in The Wizard Of Oz. I think she can’t be fired. Or maybe they’re afraid. Sorry I’m not going back to check. Anyway the other thing he left are his ghost goggles.

Originally this film had a gimmick. Shot in black-and-white it would have the ghosts in colour, and you’d be given goggles that would make them seem extra spooky, or 3D or something, and when a character puts on the goggles for the ghost sequence you should put your goggles on. This doesn’t happen in modern versions, thank goodness.

Anyway, there’s twelve ghosts, eleven that Plato Zorba collected, Zorba himself is the twelfth. A thirteenth will let them all free. But there’s more; a Ouija board predicts a death in the house. There’s a lot of money that Zorba had, but can’t be found. Rush, the lawyer suspects it’s in the house and flirts with Medea (risky**), makes himself friendly with the parents and having Buck help him, but secretly. Maybe the housekeeper is keeping secrets?

The ghost effects are nothing special, now that whatever the goggles did isn’t happening. There are one or two creepy bits, and the charming, good-looking lawyer turning more and more towards villainy is pretty good. The family however are all cheery-chirpy 50s American stereotypes, to be shoved into a haunted house… that effects their characters not at all.

Watch This: Silly haunted house story
Don’t Watch This: It’s an extended haunted house story with tedious jokes and overlong spooks

 

* Cyrus isn’t a classicist – he takes a book in Latin to his boss to be translated. AND YET he really should have thought twice or three times before naming his daughter Medea.

** Sorry for harping on about this, but Rush is clearly without any sense of self-preservation, playing on the affections of a woman named Medea, planning to cheat and abandon her.