The Ghosts of Monday

Having just had the misfortune to spend 1 hour 17 minutes watching this, I'm struggling to think of a movie I have watched in the last few years that could be considered worse than this.

Firstly, we have the terrible acting from the main protagonist Eric, whose acting range seems to solely based on whether he has his mouth open or not. The actress playing his wife spends the movie in some sort of trance. Let me be clear, this isn't intentional, she just can't act.

And then we have the plot, if that's the word for it. Nonsensical. Are there ghosts? Are there monsters? Do we care? No we don't. There is no build up, no scene laying or narrative.

What did impress me was there was a lift that has been the scene of a very unfortunate event can be spotlessly clean within minutes. Now that's what I call housekeeping.

And then there's Julian Sands. If he's your main actor then you know you're in trouble.. he may have been in good movies (although none spring to mind) but he tends to be the worst thing in anything he's in. Remember that cheesy scene in Anaconda of Jon Voight leering at Jennifer Lopez. Sands' character here spends this movie being new levels of sleazy. No exaggeration, he creepily delivers a line asking someone sharing a late night drink with him around 10 times in this film.

In short , a 1 hour17 minute film that is 1 hour 17 minutes too long.

To ''the bad luck hotel'', most surtainly an experience weve all been dragged into once upon your lifetime, a hotel with bad vibes and bad omens , because the real estate of land, or as they call it in the mediterranean area, an ''imobillien'' or hypobank offers, where rinsed and caved out on an ancient gravesite, making the sleeping spirits of mortals wake up in anger, full of revenging vibes...just like a ghost...

this is not a spoiler of the plot, rather a thinking of my tank what the makers of this antiscare horror movie, with sudden flashes of sound and glimpses of something. Its a cheap financial project happening in a tv-series pace and style, and at the end you feel just as stupid as the caracters why you entered the show.

So ''let there be ghosts'', i do believe in the phenom,enon, but not in this bluesued shoe like highbrow circles of human kind. Its not scary, romantic, nor funny if youre in for that. A weak try, go somewhere else for your holidays thinks the grumpy old man.

After arriving on the island of Cyprus, a film crew looking into the tragic history of a hotel in the area for a special documentary, but the longer they stay there come to believe the area is haunted by a series of supernatural entities due to its grisly history and must get away alive.

This was a rather enjoyable if overall cliched genre outing. One of the few standout areas here is the standard setup in play which makes for a great premise as to why the area would be so haunted. Featuring a long-winded amalgamation of curses, Satanic sacrifices, the introduction of some demon raised during one of the sacrifices, and ghostly residents trapped inside, this all offers a rather fine starting point to get everything going once the supernatural shenanigans start. That the film crew arriving and beginning their show during this final stage of the restoration process following these incidents taking place is a solid background point to get this going in the right direction. The only other part of this one that really works is the final half here where this finally manages to get its storylines out of the way and some fine action can take place. There's a nice bit to like with the various beings coming into play with the film employing nearly everything from slasher attacks including the ambush in the elevator, the cult's antics with the abduction taking place, or a series of brutal brawls that showcase the ruthlessness of the opposing group to the remaining film-crew still left alive which makes this quite a bit more gruesome than expected. It's far more energetic and kinetic than expected which is a fine touch and helps to set up the nice twist in the final moments that have an apocalyptic flavor to pay off a fine storyline from earlier to give this some positive points. There are some big flaws here that keep this one down. The main issue featured here is the overall underwhelming pace here that gives this a decidedly dull tempo for the first two-thirds of the running time. Full of exposition about the hotel's history and the exploits of the crew going through the motions of filming their show, very little actually happens here which makes for a generally dull time getting started with the lack of interest in what's going on. It also doesn't help that the other big issue here is also associated with this section in that it has way too much going on to make sense of it all, with the story of mass poisonings, secret cult happenings around animal sacrifice, ghosts, and other monsters running around which are never explained either their origins or purpose so it's all-around confusing. These factors are the major parts holding this back.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, and Brief Nudity.

Lighting: atmospheric 5/5

Plot: It could've been better. The story itself has potential but the delivery is quite awkward.

Acting: First 15 minutes was nice because it's full of mystery then comes the awkward and cliche acting to the point it was too funny. I really laughed in the cinemas (not trying to insult) because of the awkwardness is so beyond my comprehension.

You can already tell who's the antagonist and what's going on without even thinking.

Impact: No impact at all, even at the climax of the story gave me a laugh.

Sound: they use the "horror" sound too much to the point it doesn't scare the audience anymore or keep them on their toes.

The verdict: Story could've been better, Awkward delivery, acting and camera angles especially when they emphasize the antagonists.

Started well - establishied an eerie, claustrophobic atmosphere and there was some interesting character interactions BUT thereafter character development suddenly stopped leaving one not caring about any of them. The plot was lost and replaced by mindless gory violence (which is a plus if you like mindless gory violence but I do not). When the gore was (more or less) done, the resolution of the story was superficial and unconvincing. And that just about sums up the whole thing. Julian Sands was wasted. Even his prodigious skill as an actor could not rescue this enterprise. I hope the less well-known members of the cast find more fulfilling roles in future enterprises.