Review by Quin
For a while now, I’ve had this idea that there should be an updated live-action reimagining of the classic Famous Studios cartoon Casper the Friendly Ghost. Just completely forget that they already tried it in the 90s with the movie starring Christina Ricci – my version would have no cute CGI cartoony ghost and it would only be connected to the original cartoon and comic in an abstract way. It would also have to be super creepy. After all, it is a children’s cartoon about a dead kid who can’t make friends because he scares them all away. I certainly claim absolutely no intellectual property of this idea. It’s just an idea that’s floating in space that I’d really love to see. But in the meantime, we have something kinda close. I Am A Ghost, written and directed by H.P. Mendoza, is a highly original movie about a friendly ghost and it still manages to be a little scary and beautifully atmospheric.
I Am A Ghost begins with a quote from poet Emily Dickinson: “One need not be a chamber to be haunted. One need not be a house. The Brain has corridors surpassing material place.” Not unlike Emily Dickinson, the benevolent specter of I Am A Ghost, also named Emily, haunts her own house. She seems to be trapped in a sort of Groundhog Day-like existence. She wakes when the sun rises. She yawns and stretches the same way each day. She walks the halls wearing the same white dress. She makes two eggs each morning in an iron skillet, but she never gets around to eating them. When she sits at the table she goes through a ritual of picking up her knife while in a sort of trance, and she aims it at her hand stretched out on the table. Several times she is seen bandaging her hand in the bathroom. Despite the repetition, the action never gets boring. Subtle nuances are added each time and Mendoza’s direction keeps the viewer captivated. Emily’s mundane existence is broken eventually by a disembodied voice. The voice knows her name and is very frightening to Emily. It is soon made clear that the voice is a clairvoyant named Sylvia (hopefully not the now deceased and allegedly, most-likely, and in my opinion fraudulent self-proclaimed psychic Sylvia Brown) who has been trying to help Emily cross over for quite some time. Sylvia is in the same room as Emily, but they cannot see each other. When we first meet Sylvia, she seems to be new to Emily, but Sylvia assures her that they have met like this numerous times and it always ends with Emily running from the room. Each time this happens, Emily forgets everything they talked about previously. It is now up to Sylvia to convince her to stay in the room long enough so she can get enough information about how she died and who she was, so she can help her.
I Am A Ghost is funny, creepy, endearing, beautiful and sad. The whole thing is very simple and to the point, which makes the story move along at the right pace and makes it easy to follow. But when I say it is simple, that doesn’t mean it’s not smart. It is. Mendoza wisely doesn’t let the film fall into any horror stereotypes, and the script takes a plot that at its basic level has been done to death, but spins it in a way that is original. Even when the film gets to its climax, it doesn’t devolve into a cliched scare fest.
The acting is minimal, but brilliant. There are exactly three actors in the film – Anna Ishida who plays Emily being the one we see the most. The woman who plays Sylvia is never seen, but we can tell by her voice she is trustworthy and will most likely be helpful to Emily. I won’t reveal the third character, but they come in during the rising action of the story.
Now back to that Emily Dickinson quote – at one point during one of their sessions, Emily asks Sylvia, “Shouldn’t the living be able to haunt houses as well?” This says volumes about how some people live their lives – haunters of their own living quarters. According to Sylvia, “Hauntings are nothing more than emotional imprints in time.” We the living have lots of those, don’t we?
I Am A Ghost is available in Digital HD and on DVD from Gravitas Ventures. The DVD contains audio commentary, a featurette, deleted and extended scenes, behind the scenes footage and interviews. You can also buy a really cool t-shirt in a wide choice of colors at www.iamaghost.com.