[Ghost Machine]
Plot:A group of young U.S. military techs borrow a top-secret combat simulator for a weekend of unauthorized gaming. Alcohol, spliffs (a cigarette of multiple types of leaves) and virtual pornstars get the evening off to a cracking start. They set up the system inside an abandoned prison used for the torture of post-9/11 prisoners and discover that someone or something has uploaded itself into their A.I. software. A deadly new player has now joined the game: How do you survive the final level of lock-and-load virtual reality when escape is impossible, slaughter is uncontrollable and the enemy is unstoppable? The ultimate battle begins inside the Ghost Machine!!!

Cast:Sean Faris, Rachael Taylor, Luke Ford, Joshua Dallas, Halla Vilhjalmsdottir, Sam Corry, Richard Dormer, Jonathan Harden.

My Thoughts:Unauthorized usage of a combat simulator? What could possibly go wrong?!

Review:Movies like "Ghost Machine" make one thing clear when it comes to indie horror...predictability is always easier than originality. "Ghost Machine" follows a group of U.S. military techs, who ironically enough are more european than American, who have the weekend to themselves. So they decide to borrow (use without clearance in other words), a military combat simulator, which allows players to go on real combat missions within mind-to-computer simulation. This is another in a long line of gaming-gone-wrong horror films.

"Stay Alive", for example. And on the scifi front, it has shades of "The Matrix" and "Virtuosity". At any rate, these techs, who aren't as bright as their degrees let on, decide to sue this thing without clearance from their superiors. So of course things go bad. They always do, and after all, in a horror film, you need the conflict if people are gonna feel their 5 bucks on dvd/on-demand rental was worth it. But the problem with "Ghost Machine", beyond it's title which is like cinematic poison ivy, is that it takes too long to get where it's going.

We know the weekend of unauthorized sim., will eventually go horribly wrong, bad, and everything in between. But when you have to wait to the 70 minute mark of a 90 minute movie before someone finally dies, yeah - that's not good. The film overestimates it's cast of characters in other words. These guys are the typical one-dimensional white male horror movie characters. They make crude jokes, verbally diss one another, and talk about how hot the only girl (Rachael Taylor) of the group is. Real change of pace from the norm eh?

Watching these people on screen is like watching a car wreck, and early on, you're hoping the good stuff (i.e. blood, gore, butchery, ghostly murder, etc) happens early. But no, this movie prolongs everything and then when we finally get to the ghostly killings, they, and who's behind them, seems so friggin lame. Although you hope for a plot twist where some stray evil, angry spirit possesses the sim game, and decides to teach these smart aleck's a lesson, instead, you get a James Bondish backstory on the ghostly killer, and no real motive as to why they are doing what they are doing.

Nothing beyond some vague suggestions and some typical military betrayals which are more fit for the latest Nicolas Cage film, rather than an indie horror movie. Rachael Taylor is the only familiar face in this film. You might recognize her from "See No Evil", "Transformers", and "Shutter". This movie was not her cup of tea. Looked to me like she did it for the check maybe. Or maybe she just thought it would be cool to be in a movie about a combat simulator gone psycho-killer.

But for a girl with those three movies on her resume, "Ghost Machine" seems like a month old carton of milk, and is something she should've fled in the other direction away from when you tlak about taking on new gigs. Not to mention she couldn't even save this movie beyond a funny scene where her neanderthalish commander confronts her in the locker room, and she proves she's up to the challenge of doing some serious harm to him. But beyond that, her character is poorly written, and she just didn't work in the film.

I could think of plenty of B movie actresses who would've been more cut out for stuff like this. But not Rachael. She seemed too good for this movie, and the writers, who could've atleast have given her character a point, beyond being eye candy, apparently chose not to do so. And thus, we're stuck with a real mess of a movie that doesn't wow, or impress in the least.

Instead, "Ghost Machine" makes you wanna take a nap on the couch, and tell your dog to wake you when it's over. The films finale doesn't even deliver, offering up one of the most predictable endings one could think of. But to be honest, when your film is titled "Ghost Machine", and involves a combat simulator possessed by an evil spirit, how much can actually go right?

Positives:Beyond the scene where Taylor's character has a confrontation with her superior officer in the locker room, this film has no positives.

Negatives:Bad script full of boredom and lacking excitement, no blood, gore, or real carnage, one-dimensional and quite annoying characters, and some lame visual effects. Not to mention a cliche ending.

Overall:One star out of four.





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