What’s this all about?
Pay The Ghost is a fairly straightforward ghost story that, on its surface, is about the malevolent ghost of a Celtic woman who was burned at the stake, along with her three children, in old New York.
Beyond the surface, the film explores the experiences of parents who lose a child.
It’s a pretty dire affair, as one might imagine, without a lot of character development. I didn’t find it terribly scary, but it was competently written, acted, and filmed.
Who is Nick in this one?
Nick plays “Mike,” a college teacher with a wife and a young son living in New York, His life is dominated by his work, although he’s an attentive husband, and good, if sometimes absent father. At a Halloween street fair, he looks away from his son for a split second, and the child vanishes. Nick’s marriage collapses, and he becomes obsessed with identifying potential child predators in the area.
Who else is in this one?
Sarah Wayne Callies (“Lori Grimes” from The Walking Dead) plays Nick’s wife, “Kristen.” She’s good.
Erin Boyes plays “sexy coed.” I don’t remember that character, and it seems liek a weird role for a ghost story.
Did you see that?
During the scene where Nick’s son is kidnapped, Nick is buying a chocolate vanilla twist ice cream cone from a food truck. The vendor says, “that’ll be six bucks.”
Nick hands him a bill that we aren’t shown, and says, “Keep the change.”
So, two big issues here. One, did no one working on the film know how much an ice cream cone costs? This movie is ten years old. We’re currently experiencing record inflation. I wouldn’t pay $6 for an ice cream cone today.
Second, what denomination bill are we to think Nick gave him? A ten? That’s a $4 tip on a $6 order. That’s a 66% gratuity to a guy who literally just handed him an ice cream cone (and didn’t see his kid get kidnapped). Did I mention the record inflation? We’re getting pressured to tip at Home Depot, now. We still don’t tip 66%. -Michael
The CGI at the end was pretty good. The green fog that swirled around and tried to beat him up and stop him from leaving with the children was convincing especially for the time and extra especially for a straight to video movie. -Sarah
What were Nick’s best parts?
We get to see a couple of scenes in which Nick is working in the classroom. In one, he’s reading a weird, spooky poem to his class just as he releases them from class on Halloween. It felt like a fun, genuine moment that could have really happened, and Nick played the scene well. -Michael
Nick did a solid job in the scene where he lost his son Charlie. He yelled and panicked like a normal parent. There was no Nick Cage over the top screaming. He also did a great job crying after his wife first blamed him. Very believable. -Sarah
What were Nick’s worst parts?
At the very end of the movie, Nick returns home with his son, having bested the ghost, and rescued three children from the afterlife. His wife, of course, responds appropriately to seeing her son who has been missing for a year return home unharmed. Nick stands on screen like he’s not sure if they were rolling film or not. He honestly looked like he didn’t know what he was supposed to be doing. It seemed like a bad way to wrap up the story. -Michael
The scene where he yelled at the cop when they were coming up on the one year anniversary of Charlie disappearing was weak. This movie might not have been his best acting, but he was solid and believable throughout most of it. This scene he just didn’t bring it. -Sarah
How was the movie?
This was a pretty basic ghost story about a child abducting ghost. We got some Halloween history, and we got to see the different reactions people have to the tragedy of losing a child.
One father becomes a heroin addict. A mother buries herself in her work. Nick and his wife’s marriage falls apart.
That much was sort of interesting. The film, unfortunately, wasn’t scary in the least. Also the “solution” to the kidnapping just presented itself to Nick, and he immediately solved it. There was nothing really clever or unique or even tense about it.
This went straight to video, and never played in a single theater. That was probably a good choice. I would have been mad if I’d paid a full ticket price to see this, but if I’d brought it home from Blockbuster on a Friday night, it wouldn’t have been a big deal.-Michael
It was okay, but I should admit that I don’t do too well with scary movies, so while this one did get me at times it was likely not a very scary movie. -Sarah
Yeah, but did you like it?
It was OK. There are a million better scary movies out there, though. -Michael
I’m honestly not sure. As I mentioned I don’t like scary movies much, but I did okay with this one. -Sarah
Where can I watch it?
It’s on Tubi. The weak ones always are.
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