Ghostline tells the story of Tyler and Chelsea (Zack Gold and Rachel Alig), struggling actors who have just moved to a house two and a half hours outside of LA. Tyler inherited the house from his aunt, and is willing to put up with the commute for the sake of becoming a homeowner. His delight soon turns to dread, however, when he starts getting phone calls at his house looking for a man named Eric. He repeatedly tells the caller that he is not Eric, but she doesn't seem willing to listen. Soon enough, the couple learns that the calls may be originating from somewhere beyond this plane of existence. They consult various experts to try to find a way to appease this angry caller.
Ghostline is mainly a case of a dumb ghost haunting dumb people. This ghost apparently isn't smart enough to discern the identity of the people she's haunting. And the people aren't smart enough to just get out while they're still breathing. The story is an exercise in tedium, the script caught up in all sorts of matters not relating to the movement of the plot. This is yet another terribly made film that doesn't deserve room inside our cinemas. And yet here we are again, suffering through the low regard for audiences in this country.
It would be one thing if the movie were just bad horror. If this film was distilled to just scenes intended to spook, then it might have been marginally watchable. But it wastes so much time on scenes that have nothing to do with the ghost. It tags along as the main characters dine with friends, talking about the various challenges of being actors in LA. It wastes time on the interactions between the main characters and the police detective assigned to their case, who becomes strangely attached to the couple. It wastes a lot of time on things that take away from the danger of the situation.
Because all these scenes show the characters unconcerned with the threat that they're facing. They're able to live a relatively normal life that involves dining out and going jogging and heading out to auditions. This ghost is already pretty stupid, since it is apparently unable to recognize or find the person it's supposed to be haunting. But this treatment turns it into something completely benign. It certainly isn't threatening enough to derail the lives of the characters. If the characters don't care, then why should the audience care?
This is all wrapped up in the same problems that most of these cheaply made horror movies have. The production values are well below what should be acceptable in modern cinema. The film attempts to use visual effects as well, which makes the awfulness all the more glaring. Of course, the problems with the filmmaking are far more basic. The film couldn't put together a decent scare if its life depended on it. The acting is awful as well. I doubt anyone could have made the writing bearable, but these actors seemed to make it all worse.
Ghostline is one of the dumbest horror films to have ever made it into our theaters. We get a lot of bad horror movies, but most of them are least focused on delivering scares. Whether or not they're successful is another story, but the focus is appreciated. This film meanders through the boring lives of its boring characters, the story artificially lengthened through seemingly endless scenes of the characters not at all caring that they are being haunted. They go out. They jog. They go on with their lives. Nothing that is happening to them seems worthy of any attention.
My Rating:
