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Thirteen Ghosts
Metascore
30 out of 100

Generally unfavorable - based on 24 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 24
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 24
  3. Negative: 14 out of 24
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  1. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    70
    Although not for the faint of heart, it's a potent -- and very tricky -- treat.
  2. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan
    63
    As scary Halloween movies go, Thirteen Ghosts' "Oh, please" factor is pretty darn high.
    All this publication's reviews
  3. Mr. Showbiz
    Reviewed by: Michael Atkinson
    60
    This might be as perfect a new-millennium Halloween creepshow as we can expect.
    All this critic's reviews
  4. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Robert K. Elder
    50
    It's an event film, all about flash and spectacle, even though the movie itself is void of any real substance.
  5. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Carla Meyer
    50
    Oddly comforting in its inconsistent acting and bad monster makeup.
  6. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Mike Clark
    50
    Too distinctive-looking to dismiss out of hand, but it would help to be able to look through a magic viewfinder (or maybe magic eraser) and make its script disappear.
  7. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Perry
    50
    A formulaic script, a tired plot -- and uninspired dialogue all point up the real star. It's the house,
    All this publication's reviews
  8. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    50
    This efficient but soulless funhouse ride eschews suspense in favor of frantic scrambling from disturbing specters, like the naked female ghost who lurks around bloody bathtubs.
  9. Variety
    Reviewed by: Joe Leydon
    50
    The actors manage to keep from being upstaged by the sets, though just barely. Abraham goes over the top, then further still.
  10. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Staff (Not Credited)
    42
    The result is a Halloween movie in horror limbo.
  11. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jami Bernard
    38
    If only half as much attention had been paid to story and character as to set design, the cast wouldn't be playing second banana to a gut rehab.
  12. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Foreman
    38
    What follows is very gruesome indeed, though the footage of people being chased by hideous ghosts soon becomes rather dull.
  13. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    38
    13 Ghosts is the type of project that all parties concerned will have to live down for the rest of their lives.
  14. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Michael Dequina
    30
    This film is a messy jumble.
  15. New Times (L.A.)
    Reviewed by: Gregory Weinkauf
    30
    This bloody stab at William Castle's 1960 gimmick flick substitutes chaos for chills.
  16. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    25
    The physical look of the picture is splendid. The screenplay is dead on arrival. The noise level is torture.
  17. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    25
    The movie's one good performance is given by the house, full of ominous inscriptions, inscrutable chambers, and fiendish machines. The human characters are played with various degrees of manic overacting.
  18. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Charles Savage
    25
    The set design of Thirteen Ghosts may have been expensive, but its thrills are cheap.
  19. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    25
    First-time director Steve Beck hurls a dozen ghosts and probably a million dollars' worth of prosthetic makeup at us for a full 90 minutes, but it's old hat and not a bit scary.
  20. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marc Savlov
    20
    Sad, sorry remake.
  21. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Paul Malcolm
    20
    A brutish affair replete with sliced bodies, a diced storyline and enough clanky dialogue to wake the dead.
  22. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
    20
    All it has in common with the original is a few dumb fun scares. In the new version, what we're left with after the scares is just plain dumb.
  23. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    20
    Tries to combine humor with ghostly horror but excels at neither.
  24. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    20
    Offers so much frenetic fast cutting to so little purpose that it becomes an ordeal.
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User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
6.8 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 99 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 54 out of 78
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 78
  3. Negative: 20 out of 78
  1. JosephP
    7
    Not scary, then again, what movies are? The acting was rather poor, and there were more than a few plot holes. Not really holes in the basic evil machine requires certain souls, I liked that, felt really interesting. More, they were problems in how it was executed, why they were released one by one, why the uncle didn't control more to keep it from getting out of hand...The spells controlled the ghosts, they don't seem to be scary if you have a means to control them. I loved the design in the ghosts and the house. The little things, the odd symbols that resembled the ghosts, the glasses looked cool, although lacked any story on why they worked (should have had symbols on it, would have been perfectly acceptable). The ghetto black chick was annoying, could have been omitted entirely and would have been better. The ghosts didn't succeed to kill anyone important until the end, effectively making them look less scary than they should have been. The individual stories the ghosts get are interesting, and should have at least been summed up in a sentence to give something cool to it. The glass house was cool, not scary. Not freaky, it allowed you to see the ghosts, but since the characters only saw a ghost if it was in the same hallway or in its cell, that defeats that purpose. The glass house takes away the "this could happen to you" aspect that makes things freakier. The ratings this movie gets that are below 4 are completely useless. This movie didn't make anyone stand in line for a ticket, and it didn't get any rewards, but it was a decent movie and deserved to be acknowledged as decent. Over all the special effects were nice, (if not a bit overplayed on the sparks when a ghost hit anything) This movie was not scary, I thought it was entertaining, the acting is a bit overplayed, but the interest lies in the ghosts and the house. The acting isn't horrendous, it's not terrible, it's ok. The ghosts are all interesting looking, but not scary. The story has problems, but has good points too. Not a scary movie, it's rather entertaining. The people who say it's the worst movie they've ever seen have probably only seen maybe 6 of the best films ever made, in which case most other films fall short anyway...Also that black chick was annoying. This is a decent movie, not great, but worth watching in my opinion.… Full Review »
  2. SarahF
    7
    I didn't find it that bad.. I have not seen the original, so I can not compare, but I did like it.
  3. OBSG
    0
    This movie is terrible, sleecht.
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