Kill Katie Malone (2010)

After thinking they've purchased a gag-gift on an internet auction, a group of friends find their new toy actually contains a malicious ghost who stops at nothing to interfere with the outside forces amongst the group, forcing them to find a way of dealing with the angry spirit.This turned out to be a rather enjoyable entry. One of the biggest pluses here is the fairly different take on the killer-ghost genre, with the ability thrown in that ghosts can be contained into an object and then used as what amounts to genies from the legend, a unique concept that does some good work here. The fact that this tends to go for long periods of time trying to set up points where the interaction become necessary is a bit of contention, since the film's not really that interesting in those periods and not a lot goes on worth getting excited about, but the decent amount of gore in the kills and a pretty tense number of confrontations throughout the storyline definitely save it and make it pretty entertaining.Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

I'm a big fan of horror movies; probably ghost movies more so than vampire and zombie flicks. I'm mostly cruising the horror aisle of my movie rental place up and down looking for haunted houses movies and slowly realizing that all horror movies are based on a limited number of horror film archetypes, so as years go by, it gets harder and harder to find horror movies that catch my interest. Enter: "Kill Katie Malone." The title alone is enough to make me read the synopsis, and if that catches my interest, I'm seeing it. It "stars" Dean Cain from "Lois and Clark," but he's actually in less than five percent of the movie for an opening tag and end prologue. The movie itself is about three college kids at a generic college who read about a ghost box that grants wishes on E-Bay, but since E-Bay may sue, they make up a site called "U-Bid." They really don't take the object seriously, but for some reason, they follow through in buying it. The main owner is Jim Duncan, but since his friends, Ginger and Dixie (whose nick-name is never explained) chip in to help him buy it, they become part owners. After getting and opening the box, which is a big mistake in addition to getting the box, they start experiencing haunting phenomenon and in the perimeter of their lives, people start vanishing or getting killed. The whole movie has shades of "The Possession" movie with the dybbuk, which was based on a true story revealed on the TV-Series, "Paranormal Experience." Masiela Lusa, the hot daughter from "The George Lopez Show," plays Ginger, and she's smoking hot now, which makes the movie worth a see. The special effects are impressive, but not as out-standing as they would have been for a bigger motion picture, but then the best horror movies aren't about gore or special affects. They're about atmosphere and top-notch performances, and while the performances here are good, the movie itself isn't that chilling or especially scary, but it does move along very well and doesn't stray from being logical or too incredible. While it's not a great movie, I do call it a good movie for serious horror enthusiasts, but while the dead heads might like the death scenes, they're not going to like the rest of it.

Prior to actually switching on the movie, this had promise. The premise that somebody might buy a ghost on eBay (or the copyright friendly film version of YouBid) interested me and I was eager to see how the story unfolded.Unfortunately, a promising idea has been sold out to the tune of yet another college/teen horror thriller where a bunch of attractive American teenagers spend half the film running around a college or dorm from some kind of terrifying something that wants to kill them. Feel free to replace terrifying something with 'murderous ghost', 'axe wielding maniac', 'Freddy Kreuger' or whatever. It doesn't matter. The play out is the same and we've all seen it a million times before.Direction is typically brash and predictable, akin to an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with less camp. Our protagonists make all the usual horror movie victim mistakes and the haphazard introduction of the haunting is far too over-the-top. Too much is shown too soon and the inevitable killing scenes are silly to the point of absurd.There's really nothing new here. An original idea is squandered for the sake of a safe return on the budget (one assumes). The result is something forgettable and bland.

After the first 30 minutes I knew I couldn't expect much from this movie. Almost all typical "ghost thriller" clichés are used. Nothing new or unexpected. I tried to give this movie a chance anyway, but at the end I still was disappointed. The creepy scenes aren't very creepy. The story doesn't make sense sometimes (one scene she hates him, next scene she loves him..) and as mentioned the story is just too predictable to entertain. I watched it till the end because I hoped it would get better or more thrilling at the end, but that wasn't the case. You shouldn't watch this movie if you are not a big fan of this type of films, and even if you are, you probably won't get too excited.