Ghosts (1997)

I love this movie so much

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It's the town of Normal Valley. The Mayor (Micahel Jackson) is a fat white guy. He leads a mob to confront the Maestro (Michael Jackson) who lives in his mansion Someplace Else. Maestro entertains the local children in his scary mansion. Maestro asks the mob, "Is this scary?" and performs revealing scary faces.This is a 40 minute music video short. Special effects master Stan Winston directs. This is worthwhile for Jackson fans. For Winston fans, this is a weird side project. It's badly directed but he has some fun with the ghouls. The writing is awful and the story is nothing good. For some reason, the Mayor leads an angry mob and he brings the little kids. The story is very static with the mob mostly standing around gawking at Michael Jackson and his ghouls. The songs are not terribly catchy but the man does do his dancing.

I first saw "Ghosts" while staying up late one night, terminally bored and channel surfing during October of 2001. Then I stumbled upon what at first glance seemed to be an old horror movie-- I was about fifteen seconds into Michael Jackson's Ghosts. I sat transfixed for a little over a half hour, and marveled at what a lovely little gem it was.Almost eight years later, and just moments after the announcement of Michael's death, I hunted down a copy of this film on DVD.Seeing it now-- after M.J.'s passing-- I still love it, however it gives me the creeps in a different way.First off, the DVD copy I have was released by "Kingdom Entertainment"-- whether this was Jacko's own company is hearsay, but it certainly would explain how the film was produced. Jackson also brought on board Stan Winston (director) and Stephen King (co-idea with Jackson, as well as screenplay).For thirty-eight minutes, we see Michael Jackson redo "Thriller" (albeit with ghosts instead of zombies), tell his critics to f*ck off, and prove to the world that he still loves children.Jackson's dancing is as usual superb, and the SFX are state of the art; sadly his songs are so-so, and his acting as The Maestro is truly horrifying-- matched only by the extras hired to play the townspeople and their children, accompanying the Mayor be part of the mob to oust "The Maestro" from town (ala "Frankenstein").It was simply delicious to see M.J. as the fat old white Mayor calling "The Maestro" (Jackson) a "freak." Also wonderful is how hard The Maestro tries (but fails) to be such a bad-ass, and scare the Mayor from his mansion--and by films end he does, of course.The part that chills--then and now--is after the Mayor has left a Mayor-sized hole in one of The Maestro's stain-glassed windows while exiting the mansion. The Maestro asks the families "Did I scare ya?," the townsfolk kiss-up by blathering on about how "frightened" they were. When this appeases The Maestro, he then asks "Did we have a good time here?" There is a pause, followed by an irritated "HELLO!" from The Maestro, then more peals of nervous butt-kissing a moment later.Also unnerving is how it now seems a bit like The Crow: Jackson plays many roles in this film, namely a dancing skeleton entertaining his "audience" from beyond the grave; and Lee playing The Crow, sent to avenge two heinous murders from beyond the grave. Now that both are dead, they still entertain us from the hereafter playing characters from the great beyond.

Mike has and is going through a lot but Ghosts is a one of a kind type thing . Tell me how many movies have you seen a dancing and sing ghost with others of all sorts.when you go deep into thought about it it can scare you fonding other than pure good hearted fun. Sure it is some what a little well weird but there are music videos I've seen plan awful. Not this one this one is a true one of a kind as I say again.The great thing of all I want to stress is the fact that he is preforming in this so when it comes to a end you have to see what that hole part is about which can target another idea and just as long as the performance went on another can to stress the answer of this problem or the problem that needs to be answered. Which is why THis is a just wonderful superb movie to fill a tape. Even though mike isn't the most popular thing right now his movie can be.

Being a Michael Jackson fan since the early 1980's I've always remained interested in anything he does.I think commercially his best days were behind him in the mid-90's, but this is still an excellent video and it far exceeds a lot of the crap that artists put out there today.Most videos are the same thing over and over, the artists with the line dancers in bikinis behind them, YAWN!Michael Jackson comes along and takes the music video to the next level, he puts a storyline into it and killer special effects.When you get done, the only person the guy has failed to outdo is himself.Like him or no, Michael Jackson is still the king of music video.