The Ghostmaker

Student Kyle (Aaron Dean Eisenberg) finances his studies by clearing out houses. In the basement of a mysterious old woman's house, Kyle finds an old coffin that he is immediately intrigued by. Although he has to promise the old woman that the coffin will end up in the dump, Kyle takes it home with him. With the help of his wheelchair-bound friend Sutton (Jeff Walter Holland) and fellow student Platt (Jared Grey), Kyle soon discovers that the coffin is a very special invention by 15th century German scientist Wolfgang von Tristen. Called a shadow box, the coffin is said to allow the boundaries between life and death to blur for a few minutes. To find out what it feels like to walk around as a dead man in the world of the living, Kyle gets involved in a dangerous experiment, which Sutton soon joins. But the friends soon find out that it's better not to play with death.

The Ghostmaker is a fairly atmospheric mix of Flatliners and Final Destination, at least at the beginning. On a fairly low budget, Mauro Borelli, who previously worked as an art director on blockbusters like Pirates of the Caribbean 3, has directed a mix of horror and fantasy with decent suspense potential. But he can only rarely really exploit this potential. This is because the low budget is not only noticeable in the special effects, but also in the actors. More accomplished actors might have been able to breathe some life into the rather flat dialogue. Unfortunately, the cast of The Ghostmaker only manages to do this very marginally. Especially Aaron Dean Eisenberg and Liz Fenning struggle very woodenly through the not exactly surprising story, which admittedly does not help the suspense.

Another shortcoming of the film is the music. While the main theme is quite convincing, the award-winning composer Christopher Young could be won for this, the rather simple synthesizer soundtrack by José J. Herring always brings back memories of 80s B-horror films. While this occasionally has a certain charm, it seems almost unintentionally comical, especially during the big finale, and makes it clear that The Ghostmaker may be quite at home on DVD, but in the cinema it doesn't live up to the standards that may be placed on a contemporary genre film, if only in technical terms.

It's nice that Los Banditos Films is also bringing smaller horror productions to theaters with its After Dark Films series. And there's no denying that there are significantly worse films that make the jump to the big screen. Still, there are too few reasons to justify buying a movie ticket with The Ghostmaker. The successful opening and a few nice moments of suspense will be enough for some genre fans to spend an entertaining evening in front of the TV. For the theatrical release, however: only very conditionally worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp