Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, Ltd.

While browsing through Netflix on my Xbox 360, I came across Death of a Ghost Hunter.  Although I had never heard of the movie, the title intrigued me, and after reading the synopsis I decided to give it a try.  Death of a Ghost Hunter concerns Carter Simms and her investigation of the Masterson House, where the Masterson family was brutally slaughtered.  The film is shot in a documentary style, with opening and closing notes attempting to establish an air of reality, similar to that of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Blair-Witch Project (which the characters of the film reference at one point).

A movie like this can fall apart very rapidly if it’s not handled right, but overall I enjoyed it.  I’ve always been disappointed by TV shows like Ghost Hunters, because  in the end you never really see anything.  After an episode, there’s still no evidence of a haunting; all you really have is people running around saying, “Did you hear that?” while tinted green by crappy night vision.  What this film does is take that basic reality-show idea and make a movie out of it, and for that it works.

Where the movie doesn’t work quite as well is in the acting and characterization.  For the most part the acting is not good.  It’s not terrible, but everything has an amateur air to it.  To the actors credit they never try to go over the top, but given the documentary feel of the movie, many of the lines are delivered in a “here’s my line” sort of way that clashes with the realistic feel the filmmakers were going for.  A fight scene between Carter and Mary Young (a stereotypical “everyone else is a sinner and going to hell” goody girl) is particularly bad.  Character-wise, there’s not a lot going on.  Carter is supposed to be the skeptic, but she never really displays that skepticism (nor is she given a chance to, as things escalate pretty quickly).  The two other members of her crew (hired by her employer, the current owner of the house) are also fairly bland; the cameraman is a wuss and the news reporter is supposed to be edgy, but their just not interesting.  Mary Young is perhaps the most annoyingly stereotypical character, however.  Her whole self-righteous act comes off extremely cliche.  Granted, it’s supposed to contrast to what happens later in the film, but it’s still cliche.

What makes this movie work for me, despite the acting and some of the lines, is the style.  The opening of the film is done as Carter’s journal entries, with her narration cut with dialogue in the scene.  I was worried that the whole movie would be like this, but the movie transitions into a more natural style once everyone’s in the house.  The build-up of weirdness is handled very well, with the situation getting more creepy all the way to the end.  The ending was also interesting, although I think it went a little too far in explaining things to the audience.

All in all, this movie did a good job of combining its basic components.  While The Blair Witch Project and Ghost Hunters are the most obvious, I think there is also a good bit of Richard Matheson’s Hell House in this as well, especially given the disturbing nature of what went on in the Masterson House.  This would be a good watch for most horror fans.