I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

Movies That Rip Off Just About Everything

Death Of A Ghost Hunter (2007)

Wow, I really like it when the title of a movie tells me how it's going to end. NOT. But you've gotta admit, if you can't think of a new 'gee I think this house is haunted' kind of title, this is a good one to go with because you know in all of these they die - somehow. Trouble is, they don't even make it a challenge as to HOW she's going to die (it is a she this time BTW) - ghost or psycho? Well, by the time they introduce the players you know and I'm not sorry to say it right from the start, it's that obvious - psycho. So the real question: They are so goddamn sincere about getting all the 'facts' and 'dates' about this movie just right so - was this movie real or one of those 'loosely based on a true story' type of things? 

The answer is simple. NO. This was kind of a Blair Witch mind twist that tried to make the viewer think they were witnessing something real. The truth (and believe me, tons of people, including those who live in the town themselves have searched) is that this particular story NEVER happened, there NEVER was a female paranormal investigator hired and then killed in three days, and basically, this movie can print all the 'facts' it wants - it's sheer fantasy.

It's about the murders of the Masterson family in Queens Creek, Arizona. It shows (And if the murders were unsolved, how would they know?) the mother putting away a bloody knife, stopping up a bathtub and placing a cross and baby inside and turning on the water, then leaving a note before shooting herself. Residents who have been there since the 60's have remarked that Queens Creek has very little crime and the only thing close was a man who killed his family then himself - not remarkable nor anything like the movie. So let's dispense with the 'what ifs' and just get this bloody (sorry) thing over with.

I love my job so much I work on the cheap...

Twenty years later the nephew of the murdered father wants to sell the property and offers a paranormal investigator $5,000 to prove whether or not things do occur there. Okay, calling BS right now on that one - she comes clear from Oregon (according to her license plates) and she's doing this for only 5 grand? This is supposed to be in 2002 so even with money being worth a little more then, it's still not spit. 

Certainly not worth enough to travel clear to bloody Arizona for some sort of investigation. After getting there, she's surprised that he's also hired a photographer and a reporter - he wants it all documented. Again, I call BS. If he wants the house to sell by proving nothing's going on and something actually does, he certainly doesn't want it spread all over the news. Massive duh. 

Then a religious nut from the church Masterson started shows up, a young girl about, oh, 20 (hint hint HINT). All are surprised to see her, but she claims the nephew wants her there to make sure the family's name isn't 'tarnished'. HINT HINT HINT HINT HINT HINT HINT HINT.... (okay, sorry about that)...

So Carter (PI) with Colin and Yvette get to wander around this very nice (A cleaning woman came once a week - for 20 years? BS!!!) house that 20 years ago had a bloodbath. So of course you know the drill - and endless set of sequences where they bring in and set up all their equipment, except since this is a found footage type movie AND found journal we get a deadpan reading by Carter in her journal YAWN. 

All of them are horrible actors, which makes everything that much more tedious. Besides, we've got the title, we have a religious nut, we've got our movie - DUH.Especially when Carter goes to pass around the keys and although there are four people, only three keys are given HELLO....ANYONE AWAKE OUT THERE???

We get two days and nights of 'What was that?' 'Did it just get cold in here?' 'Look at this videotape!' and every other device every other damn movie uses. The only break in the monotony is when Colin and Yvette, while taping at night with the damn green screen, start mimicking other movies, like The Exorcist and The Blair Witch Project. Alas, that bit is very brief.

After their second night, gee whiz, the nephew calls upset - he's never heard of the religious nut and wants her out. They find out after throwing her ass out the door that she's not only a nut - she's the whole damn tree. Not only has she peed in Yvette's suitcase (she thinks she's a whore because of how she dresses) she doesn't even belong to the Masterson church - she was kicked out after taking a dump in the middle of the place when they did something she didn't like (hmm, maybe I like her after all). 

She of course, has to give up her key (which was actually Carter's key) but shows up later and through sheer DUHness (I'm going to come up with some new DUH words) she manages to sneak back the key. You KNOW what happens next. So while she was there, supposedly haunted activity has been taking place all over - dead kids showing up, alternately giggling and crying, the mother who only seems to be able to talk backward, some woman named Miranda who wasn't supposed to be there, chairs move, we yawn, they gasp, we pause, go get another shot of Jack and pee, come back and damn, it's still boring. But when the psycho leaves, gee, the house goes quiet... HINT HINT HINT HINT HINT HINT HINT HINT.... (okay, sorry about that again)...

Lets see. They're at the house because the family of FOUR were found dead. Uh, we can count. There was a baby, remember? That's five... Hmm, wasn't there another movie with this scenario...  oh yeah, Playback (reviewed 9/15 - no wonder it's so familiar).  What happened in Playback? A baby who was still alive was rescued and adopted by a cop who responded to the scene. What happened here? A baby who was still alive.... ah, hell just skip it.

So psycho just-happens-to-be-20-and-adopted girl comes back, kills all three, and then shoots herself. And we get the family's 'true' story as narrated by the crazy girl (How the hell would she know anything about it?). Massive BS going on here - and people thought this was real? Okay, since the Mastersons were uber religious that means they were uber twisted, right? Isn't that how it goes in these things? Well the husband was anyway. His way of 'cleansing' errant little girls was chaining them up and raping them until they were 'pure' again... makes sense to me. Except one, Miranda (ooohhhh, YAWN) was 'stubborn' and he had to 'correct' her so much she got pregnant and had his kid. 

Mommy kind of lost it over that, killed him, the kids, Miranda (who she buried in the yard for some massively DUH reason) and then shot herself. But she was righteous to do it - at least according to our little psycho. Everything done in the house was done in the name of God. It's in the Bible, right? No? Maybe in the family's Bible - that's where daddy kept polaroids of his little girls in bondage. So according to THEIR Bible maybe....

Oh, and Carter? Even though there were three sent to investigate, she seems to be the only new 'ghost' (besides the little psycho) trapped in the house - how fair is that? Oh yeah, sorry, pure fiction - and nobody said it has to be logical or even real. No matter how many factoids the movie prints beforehand and afterward THIS MOVIE WAS NOT REAL. Nor was it good, scary, or original in any sense of the word.