The town of Mt. Moriah comes under the thumb of Martha, a ghost who comes back to haunt the teens, who witnessed her death as children, during a “game” of ‘Ghost in the Graveyard.’

The film opens with young children playing a game of Ghost in the Graveyard. During the game, one of the girls falls into an open grave and dies in front of her friend Sally. Fast forward a few years and we now see the kids all grown up into stereotypical teenagers going to a Catholic high school that seems to really enjoy speaking about the end of days. Sally returns to town from somewhere and after an unknown amount of time. Another girl from that night, Zoe, is there to greet her in typical mean girl fashion with her pack of one note sidekicks in tow. Another kid dies, cops randomly decide to be suspicious of Sally, a secret society is around who may or may not be evil, there are witches, Armageddon is involved I think.

If that last sentence seems like a lot of random ideas thrown at you all at once, then you have a general idea of how watching this movie felt. That is the biggest flaw of the movie. The pacing and edit are all over the place that it feels like someone threw four different movies in a blender and called it done. Plot threads would be brought up randomly then completely forgotten. Or things would be mentioned off of the blue and the characters just wouldn’t react, as if we missed the scene that previously brought up this new information.

Kelli Berglund (Animal Kingdom, Hip Hop Harry) was serviceable in the lead. Jake Busey (Stranger Things, Starship Troopers) and Olivia Larsen (The Last Halloween, Take My Keys) are okay in their respective roles of Sally’s Father with a secret and Zoe. The rest of the cast is just there. Unfortunately, the actors are given such paper-thin characters to work with, that you end up feeling bad for them.

The technical aspects of the film fare slightly better. As the sound and music is serviceable and consistent. While this is the first time that Charlie Comparetto has been in the director’s chair, he handles the job well enough. One of the ongoing issues with Ghost in the Graveyard is that it stumbles over its own feet every chance it gets. The good points are only okay and the not so good points are pretty low. While there are some interesting ideas presented, they are never flushed out or are overshadowed by the awkward pacing and bland script.

Ghost in the Graveyard
RATING: NR

Ghost Teaser from CELLAR DOOR FILMS INC on Vimeo.

Runtime: 90 Mins.
Directed By:
Written By:

 

About the Author

Nate Stephenson is a northern California native. His love horror and being scared runs deep. Gaming with his pups is where you'll find him on his downtime.