Pay the Ghost

Uli Edel's Halloween-themed horror movie is an insufferably sluggish and irredeemably silly non-thriller that commits the cardinal sin of not being remotely scary. Nicolas Cage, looking understandably dazed and confused, stars as NYC university professor Mike, who disappoints his son Charlie when he returns home too late to go trick-or-treating. Mike tries to make it up to the boy—who is incidentally troubled by a fearsome apparition outside his bedroom window—by taking him to a nearby street fair, where the kid disappears after asking his father to “pay the ghost.” A year later, a still-distraught Mike encounters a group of homeless folk dwelling in underground tunnels next to graffiti featuring the same words, and he discovers a possible connection to Celtic magic involving a 17th-century mother burned as a witch after being forced to watch her three children die—a woman who threatened to return every year to take others to replace them. Thus begins Mike's effort to recover Charlie from “the crone” before the stroke of midnight, when the entrance to the netherworld where she keeps the abducted children will close. All this convoluted nonsense plays out lethargically under Edel's laggard direction, while a final twist suggests a possible sequel—easily the most frightening thing about this supernatural stinker. Not recommended. (F. Swietek)