Wednesday, October 15, 2014

I Am a Ghost



(2012) **1/2

As ‘I Am a Ghost’ begins we see an attractive woman, Emily, wake up in the morning, cook some eggs, clean her Victorian home, and go about her daily business. Then we see this same sequence again, and again. We soon learn that Emily is a ghost and she has been trapped in her home for an indeterminate amount of time (although a photograph she frequently looks at suggests the 1800s). Eventually a medium (Sylvia), hired by a family to rid Emily from the house, begins to communicate with her. Sylvia notes that she has been trying to help Emily “move on to the next place” for some time now but she has been unable to do so. Through a series of conversations Emily’s dark past is revealed.



Filmed on a $10,000 budget, director H. P. Mendoza does an excellent job with limited resources. The film is atmospheric and Anna Ishida (Emily) who is in every scene is terrific at conveying the growing reality of her life (or lack thereof). Unfortunately ‘I Am a Ghost’ is essentially a short story that could have been told in 30 minutes instead of 70. As a result it feels sluggish and repetitive and it becomes the kind of movie that makes you want to want to fast-forward to the last 5 minutes to see how it all turns out (not well).

6 comments:

Catfreeek said...

Sounds like if you took the acting and cinematography from this film and combined it with the intricate plot from Haunter you would actually have a pretty darn good film.

Landshark said...

Wow, $10k. That sounds cheaper than most student films.

AC said...

Argh, too bad they had to pad it out!

Johnny Sweatpants said...

That's odd that there were 2 consecutive "Groundhog Day" movies reviewed.

DKC said...

Yeah, who knew that was a thing? Still, doesn't sound like I'd get to it.

Crystal Math said...

Cool -- are there many ghost stories told from the ghost's perspective?

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