“…a movie that you can kind of just put on and enjoy…”

I decided tonight that I wanted to watch a movie, but not a movie that would require a lot of brainpower, just one that I could sit back and enjoy. I eventually landed on my newly acquired copy of Pay the Ghost. For those of you who haven’t heard of pay the ghost, I don’t fault you for it (seriously, this movie seemingly came out of nowhere). The movie is about a professor (Nicolas Cage) who’s son goes missing on halloween night after uttering the chilling phrase “can we pay the ghost?”. Honestly, in my opinion, the movie is not great. That is not to say I didn’t enjoy it though.

The movie is a pretty basic supernatural thriller. This review is going to be shorter than my other ones because honestly, this movie was kind of forgettable. Nothing sticks out to me as being bad in the movie (except for the acting of the child), but unfortunately there wasn’t much that differentiated this movie from others in its genre. One aspect of the film I did enjoy was the colour grading. The scenes that took place indoors seemed to have a sort of bleak glow, which added to the overall eerie feeling, and the scenes that took place outdoors seemed really sharp and vibrant. I feel like this help capture the tone of the film in a few key scenes. Other than that, there was nothing really extraordinary about any other aspect, save for a pretty cool homage to the shining at the beginning of the movie. The score was fitting, the acting was good, there were no shots that made the movie feel ‘amateur’. Really, if I had to pick another bad thing about the movie, it would just be that I feel they showed the “ghost” too much, but really thats just my personal preference.

Unfortunately there just isn’t much more I can say about this movie. I enjoyed it, I think it is a pretty good thriller with a few good scares mixed throughout. Honestly, if you want a movie that you can kind of just put on and enjoy it, I would say that this is a great movie for you. Just don’t go into this movie expecting something like Jacob’s Ladder, because it just doesn’t have the substance.

I give Pay the Ghost a C (3/5)