Ghost of Goodnight Lane (2014)

An independent movie studio connected to an old house with a history of violence is tormented by the vengeful ghoul that insists her home is not bulldozed over by other potential buyers. The head honcho of the studio (Billy Zane, who mostly looks bored and disinterested, with less-than-subtle hints of sarcasm in his performance towards the project he's stuck in) plans to finish his latest project then sell off the house with plans to move to a brand new studio but when the ghost of bad little girl Carly starts raising a violent, psychopathic ruckus, he might just have to consider. Zane's cast and crew will also be under siege and terror, attempting to escape but unable to do so, some meeting horrific ends, others trying to "negotiate" their way out of the place to safe freedom. Decent cast (the aforementioned Zane, Lacey Chabert, Matt Dallas, and Danielle Harris) is really trapped in a bad horror movie with variable special effects (primarily laughable) and some okay dark humor. The film can't escape a putrid low budget, and the cast running around a studio attempting to find safe haven from a ghoul (that pales in comparison to the Japanese Onyro ghouls so popular about ten years ago) that isn't all that scary doesn't help. There are some eerie dolls in a room, a nasty bit of business involving a mirror slashing (the ghoul can "manipulate" people into harming / killing themselves), and Zane trying to talk the ghoul into leaving them alone has a bit of funny to it. Harris is too good to be stuck in parts which do nothing with her and too often these days she is…this film especially wastes her talents. Chabert keeps on a serious face as does Dallas (as the put-upon rookie, placed with doing multiple duties due to the crew losing their head editor (B-movie vet, Richard Tyson) in the opening sequence), her lover, but the plot is anything but worthy of a straight performance…the content and effects accompanying it leave much to be desired. This is fit for syfy and that is not a compliment. I think Zane knows what kind of crap this is and his performance doesn't hide that fact. Carly's mother's back story is even linked to Charles Manson! Christine Bentley services the film as some nice eye candy in scantily clad outfits (she *almost* gets nude for a shower sequence) as Zane's "star" and Allyn Carrell is the creepy old lady with a story to tell and secrets to unveil. One truly funny and odd scene has Carrell just appearing and walking throughout the studio as Zane (and his kooky crew member Johnny (Adam Whittington, a very realistic loser)) is bewildered at how to get her to leave. The back story involving Jeanie and Carly's reasons for acting out are particularly weak but the film probably couldn't have made it out successfully regardless. Lynn Andrews III is the token black character (he is over the audio/sound department of the studio)who actually makes it out alive, but not without a few bumps and bruises.

Billy Zane plays the director of a music video, which is filmed in a studio that used to be the home of a girl, who is now dead. Her ghost is haunting the place, and Zane talks his sound techie into keeping quiet about it for fear of losing his crew. As the story proceeds, we are introduced to his crew and actors, many of whom are there to be kill bait for the malicious ghost. This was much better than I thought it was going to be, and it was done in a tongue-in-cheek manner. I like the twist towards the end where we find out about Charles Manson's (yes, the serial killer) kid. I found the movie surprisingly fun. It's not great, probably not even good, but it was entertaining. The special effects were nothing to brag about, but considering the budget was probably low, the effects weren't bad. Boobs, butt, blood, and gore are in this. There's plenty of gore to go around, though they didn't go crazy with it. Christine Bentley gets naked for a shower scene, and later, she is forced to stick her face into a fan, chopping it off.Billy Zane is hilarious. He can't get Laurel's name right. He keeps calling her Lauren.Lacey Chabert has become a really good actress, however,- as I said earlier - this is done in tongue-in-cheek fashion, so don't expect an Oscar worthy performance.Danielle Harris looks a lot like Chabert - they could be sisters. She does a good job on her role as one of the dancers who becomes possessed by the ghost.Christine Bentley has a hot body...it's even hotter in the nude scene. Overall, she's brought into the movie to be the big-boobed, blond sexpot.I gave this a 5-star rating because it was funny, entertaining, and it didn't hurt that the girls were hot. Oh, it was also somewhat original, as I've never seen a movie that had a ghost haunting a studio, not that I can remember anyway.

So I thought I might get some laughs tonight and check out a horror comedy... disappointingly I got not much more than a handful of slight grins from this dull piece of work. While the acting is good, the effects are passable without evidently requiring much of a budget (if they had a real budget then shame on them), and the characters are not bad, it just doesn't have anything special to offer. In fact, the whole thing is stock... run of the mill... ho hum. Plot, dialog, pretty much everything is clichéd, but not in that meta sense where it is playing off of it for irony or even... gasp, humor. Therein lies the biggest disappointment, and I already said it once but I will repeat it... it just isn't very funny.Nor is it a really good horror. It does succeed in setting up a few creepy scenes... not really scary scenes, just creepy, but they, as stated, are not innovative. It has some okay deaths, although, again, they are not innovative. It has a basic plot with only the slightest variance from what we have pretty much seen a hundred times before. You would think with all the effort it takes to get the funding this movie must have needed, and to get the decent cast it has, someone might have really taken the time to have a better script.It is not a terrible movie by any means... there is a bit of skill involved here. If you don't expect anything going into it you might find it mildly entertaining. A mindless way to pass some minutes away. But if you go into it with any higher hopes than that, well...

Well this is just awful, but what makes it even worse is that it has all been done on purpose. Many people will watch this for Billy Zane, and for those people this will be exactly what you are hoping for in Zane's non stop blabber and off hand remarks that on some occasions don't even have anything to do with the movie. Now fans of Lacey Chabert will be completely disappointed by the amount of screen time she actually gets, and the limited depth of her character. Lacey has talent, (find, and watch Thirst if you are not already as sure of that as you should be) but once again, she is being wasted in a terrible movie that very few people will actually ever watch. Now about the movie itself, there is no reason why it has to be this bad, they started out well, and they have stocked the movie with a lot of talent, it is just that the intention of the production team seems to have been to create something funny, sadly that mark was missed. Every door before it opens has to be shown first as a scary thing that the cameras must rush up to as if a great invisible beast were coming (every time). Why does it hate the doors so much? is almost funny, and sadly the only almost in there. The ghost is in the house, and of the house, so where is it coming from each time that it needs to storm the doors, or when no one is looking to get scared, why would it need to open doors sneakily? I'm sure I am taking this movie a lot more seriously than the cast did while they worked on it, but if you are going to choose a movie to be entertained by for an hour, and a half or more, you should at least be entertained. The acting is all fine, how can you fault a room full of improving actors when the script most likely just gives a rough idea, and says go nuts. I did not Enjoy this movie, and do not recommend it at all. Even a horror parody has to be based in something, or anchored somehow to some rule that does not change, this is too loose for it's own good.Jesse of www.Jesse.ca