Ghosthunters (2016) User Reviews

Asylum aims for the middle again.

[dodajoshua · 2/10 · 23 August 2016]

I signed up for IMDb just to write this review. I think that is an important thing to make note of. I came into possession of this movie and saw NO reviews of it, only a semi-favorable rating. I thought, "I can enjoy a bad horror movie now and again, so why not give it a go? I should not have given it a go.

Whenever you start a horror movie and the "Asylum" logo appears on screen, you already know what to expect. Unless you're drunk, you will not enjoy this movie.

The acting is bad. The visuals are mediocre. The story is uninteresting and you will predict the ending at around the 30 minute mark of the movie. You may ask yourself if you should even bother continuing to watch at this point, the answer is no.

There is a woman in this movie who is supposed to be hacking for some reason, I guess she's hacking ghosts? I stopped paying attention to what she was supposed to be doing when I realized that her computer screen was just a random number generator and she was mashing keys haphazardly the entire time.

There is a scene where shadowy ghoulish figures appear - however it is clear that they are just men in black morph suits, complete with visible wrinkles and seams.

The best part of the film is right at the end when the credits are over and you can go reflect about how you wasted about 90 minutes of your life and you will never get them back.

Asylum's dud

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 10 July 2018]

GHOSTHUNTERS is another cheapie from The Asylum, released to capitalise on the GHOSTBUSTERS all-female reboot. This has nothing to do with any of the Hollywood films and instead is a typical low budget haunted house horror flick in which a team of paranormal investigators set up base in a haunted house in order to capture the spirits living there. One of the team has a personal connection to the dead but that's all the depth you're going to find. This is slow, slow stuff indeed, with rubbish direction and stilted acting. The gloomy visuals are sleep-inducing and the whole thing has an air of tired predictability.

Why oh why was this movie ever made

[tohkwongweng · 2/10 · 15 September 2018]

This was a very feeble attempt at making a serious scientific scary movie. At no point during this movie did I experience even an iota of fear or dread. It was one cliche after another stolen from some of the best scary movies but failing miserably in its execution and delivery. I may as well have watched this one with all the lights on (I always watch scary movies with all the lights off for maximum effect) and the experience would have been the same. The plot twist at the end was absolutely ridiculous and nonsensical. Which basically sums up the movie. Don't waste 90 minutes on this you'll only walk away saying wtf.

Run the decoder!

[nogodnomasters · 1/10 · 13 November 2017]

The film opens with the horrific deaths of Martha (Phyllis Spielman) and Gabby (Anna Harr) by a man with a mask and a voice enhancer so we can't understand what he is saying. Henry (Stephen Manley) the father in the family invites a team of ghost hunters to a home so he can put their souls to rest after they were tortured for a long period of time with the home prepared for torture.

Our team has special glasses to see ghosts and a machine to capture them and turn them into ectoplasma that is not fluorescent green. Oh yes they have that binary thing to extract a voice.

You have the film figured out when the guy inside the house behind the police barricade opens the door. This is a poorly conceived Asylum mockbuster for the new and most likely better "Ghost Busters 2." It is a bad combination of ghost/slasher movie, filmed at one location to save money.

Guide: No sex or nudity. No swearing in FF mode. Pearry Reginald Teo should not be writing or directing films. He sucks at it.

Terrible

[gianmarcoronconi · 1/10 · 11 April 2022]

Hideous movie to say the least, with a stupid and senseless plot and stupid and highly predictable twists, not to mention the special effects that are really worth it and to make things even worse is the fact that the film is absolutely no scary.

Deadly dull ghost hunting

[TheLittleSongbird · 1/10 · 5 May 2018]

Have made no secret in the past of intensely disliking, and even outright hating a lot, a vast majority of The Asylum's (near-universally maligned for good reason) output, though there is curiosity as to whether they are capable of making something good and compulsive about their output's badness. Admittedly, The Asylum do have a small group of watchable films and the occasional (big emphasis on that word) above average one, unfortunately outweighed by the lacklustre at best and often dreadful films they churn out.

'Ghosthunters' is not quite one of The Asylum's all time worst, they've definitely done worse that have been more amateurish and insulted the intelligence more. With that being said, even when taking it for what it was, and from watching other films from The Asylum it is abundantly clear it shouldn't be taken seriously, it was a very poorly executed film and towards the bottom, compensated only by some eerily creepy scenery.

Visually, 'Ghosthunters' looks incredibly cheap even for something made on a low budget. It's very drably and sometimes dizzyingly shot, incoherently edited (bacon-slicer-like) with glaring and unforgivably sloppy continuity errors, wasting some eerie-looking scenery.

Regarding the effects, they still look very cheap though and like they were an afterthought and made in haste. The ghosts look goofy and too reminiscent of people in costumes and are not scary at all. Am aware of the film being low-budget, but there are examples of low-budget films that still don't look awful and manage to be pretty good.

Can remember little about the music, which tended to be intrusive, annoying and out of place. The script makes little sense, sounds awkward constantly and on the wrong side of camp throughout.

Nothing thrilling, tense, suspenseful, emotionally investable or fun about the story. The predictability (with the ending being incredibly obvious very early on) may have been forgivable if the film was actually engaging let alone exciting but it fails to be either throughout. 'Ghosthunters' is basically non-stop dullness, and intelligence-insulting ridiculousness, with a complete lack of tension, suspense, scares or even atmosphere.

There is also, as is the case with a lot of The Asylum films, unintentional humour because of the excessive cheese and laughably goofy interpretations of the ghosts, numerous illogical moments, bouts of mawkish drama (couldn't get behind the whole derivative and over-sentimental previous circumstances regarding the family murders, should have been tense and affecting but was neither) and irritating character behaviours that makes one endear to them even less in a film with not one interesting or rootable character.

Acting sees the actors either over-compensating or sleepwalking through their roles, nobody gives a halfway decent performance and instead never rises above mediocre (often awful).

In summary, deadly dull. 1/10 Bethany Cox

Alright, But Average

[vengeance20 · 5/10 · 9 September 2021]

Watched this expecting it to be a bad film but was surprised to find it wasn't all bad even though it is average and not amazing.

When one of the ghost hunters looses his wife & daughter to a serial killer, the team set out to capture the spirits of the 2 so they can be at peace. But the spirits become hostile the more the team pry and a dark revelation is about to be unearthed...

I found the film to be average, not great, but average. It has a unique story with some sruprsingly scary, gory & sinister vissuals. But the story is a bit thin despite being unique and the film feels somewhat off. At 1 hour & 23 minutes its at a good length & the pacing wasnt to bad either despite some parts dragging a little.

Overall its an average film thats half good and half bad.

5/10.

Had An Interesting Premise, But....

[wandernn1-81-683274 · 3/10 · 27 April 2020]

Failed. They took a decent Ghostbusters type premise and turned it into something.....not so special. Really turned quite disappointing toward the end and then really the ending itself made little sense at all. This is one to avoid.

Mildly amusing

[fluffchop · 4/10 · 17 January 2022]

Some of the premises of detecting ghosts and decoding and the use of magnets and so on are really pretty funny. I mean where do they dream this stuff up from. It turns from ghost hunt to something more like possessed by ghosts and just turns into a steaming pile. It's mildly amusing to watch. Typical of Asylum really. You have to laugh at it because it's so ludicrous.

not so bad

[lifelinespublishing · 8/10 · 19 July 2016]

This film is not so bad, there were some scary moments but the story is really simple and easy to predict, if you don't have any film to watch and this comes up, I'd say go for it...the acting was pretty average also. there were some good scary scenes and some gore to the film. I just wished they would had a more complex storyline which would made it scarier but I was expecting a really bad film but I was proved wrong. Watched it with my wife who's an avid horror fan and she was not thoroughly disappointed with the movie.The director of the film and the special effects team should be given praise as well. There aren't a lot of American horror movies but this one should be given a look or two at.

ACTUALLY A GOOD LITTLE HORROR-SLASHER.

[lukem-52760 · 6/10 · 2 July 2019]

GhostHunters is made by cheap low budget Asylum but that doesn't mean they don't make a good movie from time to time!!!

GhostHunters is part supernatural Horror & part slasher Thriller. This fun,gruesome little B-movie Horror has some very scary moments that are actually better than some of those in the insidious films!!!

This really is a Ghost film but twists into blood soaked Slasher territory when the story kicks in. A small group of paranormal investigators stay the night in a dead serial killer's house to find & help the trapped spirits of his victims. Two of the victims are a mother & child,wife & daughter of one of the GhostHunters so this investigation becomes very personal.

The small cast is actually fine & are not annoying at all & take the situation very seriously as they should, so the sinister atmosphere is well done with the cast playing it all for real.

The production is very good considering it's all happens in one location,the big old creepy house of the killer known as The Nightstalker.

There's some really jumpy,scary moments & some excellent flash back scenes filmed gritty & old. The Demonic Ghosts look really scary & the make up is excellent. The serial killer looks very creepy so good costume design that's very different from other films.

This is a very good,well made little Supernatural Horror that makes for a creepy movie to watch over the Halloween period.

Great Film, Amazing Acting

[tomg-76291 · 10/10 · 30 August 2016]

What a wonderful surprise. As a horror fan I highly recommend Ghosthunters. It has a great twist that was very unexpected, also a story line that makes sense. I am familiar with Pearry Teo's work, having recently seen The Curse of Sleeping Beauty. This film exceeded that film by far for me. The acting was incredible, stellar casting. I was very impressed with the emotional level and the adrenaline of the actors. The cinematography was also very well done. The set of the house also looked great (Curse of Sleeping Beauty) fell short for me in that department. I would definitely give this one a spin. I actually just purchased the DVD as well.

Regular, very regular, or rather, irregular...

[RosanaBotafogo · 6/10 · 3 March 2021]

So uninteresting, even watching at night, nothing, even having spirits, nothing, even though the story is heavy, nothing, something was missing, because nothing got involved, the carnage, cannibalism, sexual violence, the film did not convince, despite my style preferred... Regular, very regular, or rather, irregular... Except the scene that imitates the exorcist, I'm afraid ... Exception of the Trash that we don't love ...