Monday, January 30, 2012

Project Terrible: Ghost Machine

Alas poor everyone.  The final film of my Round of Project Terrible films is one that is actually decent...for a while.  It really goes downhill when the plot is actually explained and executed.  Not a good sign, right?  I feel bad for everyone involved though, since the film is not awful acting-wise.  It's not great acting-wise either, but nobody really drags the movie down.  What drags the movie down is a confusing plot involving science, the military and the supernatural.  Basically, it's The Matrix meets Ghost Ship, but somehow managing to seem even sillier than that combination sounds on paper.  It just feels like someone was tasked with taking an interesting visual and making it into a logical plot.  He achieved, well, nothing.  I should point out that this movie is a North Ireland Production and that I'm part Irish.  No car bombs- drinks or actual- please!  As a bonus, rising star Sean Faris- brother of Anna- is in this movie.  Will this be a stain on his future resume?  To find out, read on...
The film begins with some men in uniform raiding a building.  Actually, it begins with a scene of some lady being dragged in under a hood.  This footage is just more interesting and doesn't lead to a silly plot twist later...
This is our hero- a man who created a VR Training Program.  He decides to take it off-site for some private testing.  This won't end badly at all.
The group wire up the hallways and rooms of the building to create a virtual environment.  That's right- our computer expert is too lazy to create his own textures and environments!  Oh yeah, this also gets people killed.
A mysterious entity makes it way into the programming.  As long as it's not that chick from Ringu (again), all is well.
When the creature starts attacking the 'gamers,' blood starts to spill.  How does it cause real, physical damage to people?  How does it make wounds appear on people's chest?  How does it make water come out of a guy's mouth later?
SPOILERS AHEAD!  You were warned....
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It turns out that the killer is the ghost of a Computer Hacker brought to Ireland via rendition.  She died and her ghost was scanned in with the room in which she died.  No, really.
Things go to hell when the ghost/hacker starts rewriting the code.  It does so to the extent that it fools our heroes into thinking that they had escaped.  It follows that up by setting the hard drive to erase.  It leads to this effect...
In the SECOND twist ending to this movie, our surviving heroes are stuck in an internet limbo for safe-keeping.  It turns out to not be so safe after all.  The End.
A ghost is still better than a Spirit.  I really thought that this movie was not going to be bad.  I thought that maybe, just maybe, I got a decent film.  Unfortunately, the other half of this movie made that not true.  Furthermore, the explanation of all of the events so far ruin the other scenes too.  The whole thing was a set-up to catch the creature?  Even if I thought that this pseudo-science was plausible, how could the character?  He seems to take the biggest shot in the dark...and wins...kind of.  That's not strong enough though.  He takes a shot in the dark, but he's also not sure if his gun is loaded or if he's even in a room.  Seriously, who thought up the premise for this movie, pitched it and actually got approval?  Did they read the script?  Did they just think that Ghost Machine sounded cool?  Good grief!!!
Next up, I wrap up January with two more films to complete a series.  First up- a film I could have sworn that I already did.  Stay tuned...

1 comment:

  1. I love (read: hate) when a film sets you up by looking oh-so-hopeful for a little while, only to quickly and decisively break your spirit in moments.

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