Film of the Week: Death of a Ghost Hunter

Continuing with the horror films during October, my third film, Death of a Ghost Hunter is a low budget B-movie, independently made by Ominous Productions. It must be said before I get to the actual review that if you’re faint of heart than the intensity may be a bit strong, along with the themes depicted in this movie. If you’re used to horror movies and enjoy watching them, then you should be fine, however, if you’re looking for a horror movie to watch for something different, then you have been warned, this will send chills down your back and make the hairs on the back of your head stand on end – or at least, it did for me, anyway.

Despite its low budget, it produced the most intense scares I’ve ever had. It’s designed to be suspenseful, with particular camera angles to keep you guessing and waiting for something to happen. It doesn’t have a single deliberate jump scare in the entire film – all of them were from my own creation, where a camera pans around naturally and to focus on a person in the dark – after all that suspense, it just burst out of me without warning.

The film focuses on a ghost hunter who is paid $5000 to investigate what is believed to be a highly haunted house, where a lot of paranormal activity has been documented by numerous people. Carter Simms (Patti Tindall) wants to go in alone, because that’s her preferred method of investigation, but the person who’s paying her insists she goes in with a team purely because of the highly activity, which she reluctantly agrees. The film covers three nights of investigation – the first night has a few pieces of evidence showing that there really are ghosts living in the house, but it’s the second night where everything ramps up tenfold, and the third night where things take a turn for the worst.

The film shows and explains how an investigation is carried out, giving the audience a sense of what’s going on, and what everyone’s job is within the house, and where they’ll be at all times during the three nights. It stays true to what is involved in an actual investigation, so all the evidence is captured through the cameras keeping an eye on various rooms and hallways, and the voices are captured on Carter’s recording device – in other words, it’s realistic to what would happen if anything were caught during an actual investigation. Staying true to that tone, we see a lot of scenes through the lens of a night vision camera or in a darkened room lit only by the investigator’s torches – keeping the genuine scare factor and suspense high and continuously increasing that right up to the end. It is a truly unique horror experience.

What must also be noted is the incredible use of the background music and sound effects. They’re only used when absolute necessary. The music isn’t put in there just to keep the scenes from being quiet, a lot of sound comes from the actors only with the music put in at specific moments to increase or emphasis the scare factor – and that goes for the sound effects. This is perfect for someone who likes to wear headphones, but be warned, it would only but increase the scare factor even further than it already is.

The only criticism I really have with the film is the acting. It did feel a little robotic as if they were reading directly from the script, however, during my watching, I turned that weakness into a strength. The entire film is designed to be as realistic as possible, and so with the actors being as they are, does make a small bit of sense considering they’re investigators, doing their job. However, it must be noted that there are a few scenes where the acting could have been better – but again this is an independent movie.

In conclusion, this is easily the scariest horror movie I’ve seen in a very long while, and probably will be for a good while to come. It truly spooked me. I do highly recommend this to anyone who’s looking to for a good, genuinely scary horror movie – if you’re able to get past it’s only weakness, which, of course, is a major part of the movie. However, once you’ve been sucked into the strong suspense, you’ll forget everything else and just focus on the paranormal activity.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)