Ghost Month (2009)

Wonderfully offbeat film!

Gripping story with well-crafted characters

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

When a young woman moves into a traditional Chinese woman's house to be her new housekeeper, the accidental desecration of a sacred ceremony to appease the restless spirits around her unleashes a torrent of supernatural visions and attacks which she has to struggle against in order to stop their malicious behavior.This was a surprisingly above-average take on the genre, much better than expected and certainly got a lot out of it. What really works well for this one is the insane atmosphere throughout here from the multitude of utterly freaky and chilling ghostly encounters. The type of set-up here allows for some really enjoyable parts with plenty of intense scenes throughout here which makes this one such an unrelenting pace, which starts with the opening here. The opening, which is the interrupted ceremony of appeasement, is a total accident as the sweeping away of the initial offering could've happened and the resulting ghostly interactions grabbing her and later confronting her by herself with plenty of ghostly swarms of tentacles comes off incredibly well as a chilling encounter, and when followed up with the skeleton sequence in the kitchen makes for a truly enjoyable time. The second encounter, where she finds the secret room all completely decorated with the lavish ceremonial trinkets before seeing the ghost approaching in the ethereal light with the howling voices in wonderfully atmospheric, a great sequence where they appear to torment her in the laundry room and a fantastic sequence where she awakens from a dream and comes along the series of ethereal lights and voices all come off really well with tons of enjoyable atmospheric action, plenty of ghostly confrontations to move this along. As well, the attacks in the closet and down in the basement all come along into a really exciting series of creepy, enjoyable action confrontations. This one also manages to get some good points in how this builds up the great story here by not only covering the actual holiday and its traditions but also in dealing with the back- story of how she came to be afflicted which is really well-executed and believable here. These here are more than enough to hold this up against the few flaws on display. The main thing against this one is the rather disappointing nature about the ghosts here where they don't really do much in the film on many occasions here, either by getting so little screen-time or generating little damage once they do. This one's reliance on atmosphere and teasing her in the confrontations instead of going after her to torment her doesn't give this any kind of activity for the ghosts to be out killing randomly and generating the kind of action for those set-ups in here. As well, the film's other problem is the inclusion of a really lame and absolutely needless subplot about a spurred boyfriend interacting with the family that really goes nowhere and features some rather lame scenes designed to showcase this which really tends to halt this one quite often to get this in. Otherwise, this one was quite fun.Rated R: Graphic Language and Violence.

I first saw this on "Chiller" last summer and I loved it. I just re- watched it and WOW what was I thinking? What a piece of crap movie! A girl gets a job as a housekeeper for a Chinese woman and her old Aunt during Ghost Month. Their house is haunted. The two woman act a bit off from the very beginning and it is quickly obvious that these woman are up to something. They are keeping secrets that lead to the end of the film. In a completely unneeded sub plot, the girls ex boyfriend tries to find her and eventually does, which plays into the films final scenes. Another subplot involves a weird Black neighbor who doesn't like the Chinese women. The content of the film, including the scares, are bad rip offs of The Grudge and Haunting in Conneticuit.

I just watched 31:19 of this flick and came to IMDb to rate. I should have came here before I started watching and checked the rating. It is such a poor movie. I kept hoping it would get better, but it didn't, and it's not worth watching more of it to find out; especially after reading reviews. It's a cliché, but WHAT WERE THEY THINKING when they made this movie. Complete trash. I believe I was exposed to 7 actors in the first 31 minutes and the two best are the taxi driver and the aunt--no lines. The scene where the maid character is sitting on a blanket reading a book and the neighbor comes may be the worst acting I've seen--at least in a long time. This is one of those movies that if you sit down and watch it, when it's over you'll say to yourself, "Why did I waste my time watching this?" Don't watch it.

The movie moves a little slow in the beginning, but it leads up to a climax full of unseen twists and turns. The movie is definitely influenced by Asian horror, but HARDLY A REMAKE OF ANYTHING! I can tell the filmmakers are fans of J-horror, but this really isn't a horror film, more of a thriller.Also, the extra features were very interesting on how they made the movie on such a low budget. It's worth a look if you like character-driven Ghost Stories, but if you're looking for lots of blood and guts, this isn't for you.The DVD had a cast commentary, blooper reel, an interview with the director, and a making of featurette. I really enjoyed the making of.