13 Ghosts

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Although not for the faint of heart, it's a potent -- and very tricky -- treat.

Baltimore Sun Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

As scary Halloween movies go, Thirteen Ghosts' "Oh, please" factor is pretty darn high.

Mr. Showbiz Michael Atkinson

This might be as perfect a new-millennium Halloween creepshow as we can expect.

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

Oddly comforting in its inconsistent acting and bad monster makeup.

Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder

It's an event film, all about flash and spectacle, even though the movie itself is void of any real substance.

USA Today Mike Clark

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.

Boston Globe Jonathan Perry

A formulaic script, a tired plot -- and uninspired dialogue all point up the real star. It's the house,

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

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.

Variety Joe Leydon

The actors manage to keep from being upstaged by the sets, though just barely. Abraham goes over the top, then further still.

Entertainment Weekly Staff (Not Credited)

The result is a Halloween movie in horror limbo.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

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.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

13 Ghosts is the type of project that all parties concerned will have to live down for the rest of their lives.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

What follows is very gruesome indeed, though the footage of people being chased by hideous ghosts soon becomes rather dull.

New Times (L.A.) Gregory Weinkauf

This bloody stab at William Castle's 1960 gimmick flick substitutes chaos for chills.

Film Threat Michael Dequina

This film is a messy jumble.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

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.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The physical look of the picture is splendid. The screenplay is dead on arrival. The noise level is torture.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

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.

Miami Herald Charles Savage

The set design of Thirteen Ghosts may have been expensive, but its thrills are cheap.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Tries to combine humor with ghostly horror but excels at neither.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Offers so much frenetic fast cutting to so little purpose that it becomes an ordeal.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

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.

LA Weekly Paul Malcolm

A brutish affair replete with sliced bodies, a diced storyline and enough clanky dialogue to wake the dead.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Sad, sorry remake.