Death of a Ghost Hunter (2007)

Average horror movie regarding a paranormal investigator who is assessing a house for supernatural activity. Due to the title, you know what happens to her in the end. It is done as a documentary style film, so it almost resembles found footage. The movie is more spooky than scary.The genre has been done to death and there are many better movies out there about ghost hunters. This one, however, isn't too bad and was a little better than I expected. Parts of it are really creepy.There are some issues with bad acting here and there and at times the dialog seemed a little silly, but overall it was certainly watchable and generally held my interest. Most of the actors did okay with their roles with the exception of the father. I also had a hard time with the casting of the church girl - I didn't find her believable at all. She did okay with what she was given, but I wish they had cast someone who didn't look so hardened.Because the writer wants you to believe this is a documentary (it isn't), night vision film is used sporadically - it shows as green and is common in these types of movies. If you have ever seen shows about paranormal investigations, you'll know what I'm talking about. Part of the film also concerns the investigator's journal entries which might run some folk's nerves.The movie runs at 1:45 so it is longer than most. As other reviewers have said, I think it could have been cut by at least 15 minutes and still told the story it wanted to tell. The back story of what actually happened in the house occurs towards the end of the movie so most of the loose ends are tied.Finally, this isn't a splatter or CGI film, so if that's your thing, you might want to skip it. Otherwise, its just okay - not great, but not bad.

Here was another Found footage movies. I have seen half of the movie before as it cameo on little late few years ago, I could not get into at time. Now that I was in Mood to watch Found footage movie, i thought this was really good.I found that the movie flowed really well and I didn't get bored at all, thinking the movie was bit too long at times there were some good decent creepy moment in this movie that I really liked.Also really liked effects in this movie was very good and knew that twist that coming, I loved the back story of the movie was really good. The only thing that really lets the movie down is Abysmal acting from the whole cast, if you can get past that , it might enjoy the rest of the movie. 5/10

I can forgive the terrible acting, and the horrid special effects, even the incredibly predictable plot. But the "Christian" character in this movie was **offensive**, and I'm not even Christian! It was the equivalent of having a black character who does nothing but talk about fried chicken and commits rapes, or a Jewish character who does nothing but pick the other character's pockets. Obviously the writer/director had some bad experiences with religious people in his past, and decided to use this movie as a way of "getting back" at everyone. It's a sad, pathetic propaganda film disguised as something remotely entertaining. I would not recommend this film to anyone, except people who were diddled by priests and are looking for a comedy.

Is it real or is it B-Movie? No one in chat rooms can tell.All because of a few lines of text at the head of DEATH OF A GHOST HUNTER: "In 2002 renowned ghost hunter Carter Simms was offered $5000 to perform a paranormal investigation of the Masterson house. Her investigation stands as the single most tragic paranormal inquiry in American history." Not bad marketing for a B-Movie. Carter Simms (Patti Tindall) is the "renowned ghost hunter," for guys who like the S.I.L.F. type (Spinsters I'd Like To--), who spends three nights in the trusty house-with-murder-in-its-past, to determine whether it is haunted. (Original? No. Laughable? Yes.) Movie is supposedly based on her journals.Set in Salem, Oregon, flashback to 1982 shows us the mother of the house drowning a doll supposed to be her baby, shooting her family via trusty shadows on the wall and blood splattering on said wall, and then taking her own life. Would have been much more tragic were it not for the filmstock stressed to look like "scratchy" 1930s footage. All it lacked was a honkytonk piano. If I remember correctly, the 1980s were only 20 years ago - how did the filmstock age 70 years? Now that's scary.Carter Simms is joined by a king dork videographer (Mike Marsh, also the co-writer) and a big-bootied brainless bimbo who looks like Ru Paul (Davina Joy, whose body just screams 'screwing her way to the middle'); Lindsay Page the Jesus Freak completes this F-Troop.Writer-director-DP-editor, Sean Tretta, tries sincerely to make a scary movie, with ominous music, morbid concepts, old-fashioned scares (rather than CGI) - but mainly by keeping all the lights off. Yet there's only so much a writer-director-DP-editor can do with bad actors. Make that no actors.Patti Tindall (as Carter) is passable, but as soon as she is joined by the troupe of non-actors, they drag her into their hellpit of sub-mediocrity. It's like playing tennis - you always get pulled down to the other guy's level. Still, Tindall is no Streep - her toneless opening narration is as chillingly blank-eyed as the narration in THE CREEPING TERROR.Story goes from illogical to just plain stupid: Carter tells her drogues, "Ghost hunting is the process in which paranormal investigators use modern technology to obtain tangible evidence regarding the existence of life after death." I can't even begin to deconstruct the senselessness in this statement. When she mentions EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena), we've crossed over. Into levels of intelligence resembling cowdung.DEATH OF A GHOST HUNTER has the potential to be a classic, old-school, Gothic ghost story, not relying on hillbilly mutilation or anal-retentive axe-killers. But potential counts for nought with no actors and the cameraman's shadow in shots. And after screaming amateur at us - from the slipshod editing, to lighting a room by shining flashlights on each other's faces - Tretta has the brass-balled audacity to have his characters mention revolutionary movies like THE EXORCIST and BLAIR WITCH.While the videographer constantly changes batteries, missing all the "haunted" action, such as chairs moving and ghosts actually appearing, the bimbo mills about aimlessly, and the Jesus Freak tries to subvert the investigation because she's a good Christian, and must protect the reputation of the good Christian lady who mass-murdered the family in the house. So while wearing a religious head-box (like something out of CARRIE), she kills all the "ghost hunters" - because that's what good christians do.The "ghost hunters" tell us that supernatural "hauntings" occur because the people in that locale were murdered violently. Logic denotes that when other people are murdered violently at the same locale, THEY should also haunt it as ghosts. Suddenly - logic! Carter Simms actually wakes up as a shimmering, low-budget special effect after the Christian freak dispatches her. Logic may be served, but then inconsistency takes over - because, after all, the logic is draped over something ILLOGICAL in the first place, so it cannot be sustained. To wit: where are Carter's ill-fated crew? Which para-dimension are they inhabiting? They were all murdered by the Christian freak, who committed suicide. But Carter Simms can only see all the original ghosts of the house. And here's the funny thing: they're still appearing as insubstantial wraiths to her! One would think that playing on their team, she'd now see them clearly. Now where'd I put that Supernatural Rulebook written by living people? The other great lapse in logic is something which the chat room dweebs could never fathom: if all this is taken from Carter's journals, exactly which entry stated she turned into a shimmering low-budget special effect? And it's a good thing her CLOTHES have souls as well, so she can appear fully clothed as a shimmering low-budget special effect. Only a benevolent Christian god would allow ghosts to appear fully clothed to comply with American censorship laws; only a benevolent Christian god would leave a soul stranded on Earth so scared, broken, destitute and meaningless.The grandest disconnect is not in the movie - it is with gullible viewers. Those same good christians who believe in the paradoxical, illogical, all-powerful yet powerless magical Christian god, who believe this is not just B-Movie. As they speculate ad insanitarium, dragging everyone else down to their F-level.Game, set, match: Superstition.