By Ben Bussey
As this new release is set at Halloween, we figured it was a good fit for our seasonal thread Trick Or Treat, devoted to checking out the best and worst in horror movies set on October 31st. Read on to see which category this one falls into…
It’s difficult, if not impossible, to see a big name actor headline a somewhat cheap-looking direct to DVD movie without fearing the worst. Still, while Nicolas Cage’s career may have seen better days, I daresay he’s also had worse projects fall in his lap than Pay The Ghost, a feature length adaptation of a story by British horror writer Tim Lebbon. Set at Halloween and based around one of the worst fears of every parent, there are the roots of something potentially very interesting and effective here, and at the height of his powers Cage would no doubt do some terrific work with it. Unfortunately, be it the restrictions of the budget or a general workmanlike attitude on the part of director Uli Edel (another once admirable figure who would seem to have fallen on hard times), all we’re left with is a bland, TV movie-ish supernatural potboiler that just goes through the motions.
Cage is Mike, a New Yorker, English Literature professor and perpetually absent husband and father. Eager to make amends to his wife Kristen (Walking Dead’s Sarah Wayne Callies) and in particular their young son Charlie (Jack Fulton) for getting home too late on for trick-or-treating on Halloween night, Mike agrees to take Charlie out to a nearby parade. But while they’re waiting in line for ice cream, Charlie says something strange about having to “pay the ghost” – and moments later, he simply disappears. Naturally terrified beyond belief, Mike frantically searches the streets to no avail, and the police have no luck either. Fast forward a year, Charlie still hasn’t been found, Mike and Kristen’s marriage is in ruins, and the police officer in charge of the case is getting sick of the constant visits and phone calls. However, Mike’s obsessive research seems to reveal a potential link between Charlie’s disappearance and that of numerous other children reported missing on Halloween night, dating back hundreds of years.
Take the loss of a child and give it a supernatural twist, and there are clear echoes of Don’t Look Now to be found here – and when you consider some of the films Uli Edel has made in the past (Christiane F, Last Exit to Brooklyn), it’s disheartening to see that he doesn’t tackle this material with similar guts. Indeed, it’s disheartening to see Cage – an actor noted for his willingness to go all out there – take on the role of a traumatised father and not get to really take it to the limits. We may mock (and with good reason) the histrionic levels Cage has reached in the likes of The Wicker Man remake, but these have at least resulted in memorable films which make an impact. There’s nothing inherently wrong with Cage’s performance here, but it’s just a bit unremarkable and forgettable, symptomatic of the overriding problem at the heart of the film; it’s just all played out so safely, as though aiming for a PG-13/prime time TV audience – although the level of swearing alone immediately rules this out.
This really is a shame, because there are some nice ideas at work here. Particularly since Trick ‘R Treat, stories dealing with the underlying meanings of Halloween have grown in popularity; Pay The Ghost delves into this, but not as deeply as we might like. The Halloween carnival scenes are pretty well realised, although the bland cinematography doesn’t bring them to life as well as it should (why, even the sight of Cage in a distinctly Elvis-ish cowboy costume doesn’t raise things the way it should). As for the ghosts themselves, they’re mostly quite well realised, though inevitably there’s a bit of extraneous CGI at play; this is mostly acceptable for the haunting effects, although the repeated presence of rather unconvincing digital vultures doesn’t really help.
The real problem, though, is the sheer lack of atmosphere. There are innumerable horror movies which have taken a less substantial plot than this one (say, pretty much anything ever directed by Dario Argento) and wound up with something striking, evocative and nightmarish. But there’s almost no atmosphere to be found here, and very little real emotion – which, when you consider it’s about parents desperately searching for their lost child, is really kind of appalling. Ultimately, what is the point of making a serious horror movie, based around so primal a fear, without making efforts to be genuinely horrifying? And again, what really makes it hurt is the knowledge that all key players are more than capable of achieving this. Under different circumstances, Pay The Ghost might easily have been a contender for one of the more distinctive Halloween movies of our time; as it stands, it seems unlikely to be remembered as anything more than a footnote in a story entitled ‘Nicolas Cage: Where Did It All Go Wrong?’
Verdict: Trick.
Pay the Ghost is released to Blu-ray and DVD on 26th October, from Arrow Films.