After finding an overlooked gem recently with Centurion, I dip back into the sewage pool that is the Netflix Basement and came up with Ghost Team. It’s sort of a comedic riff on Blair Witch style amateur paranormal investigations. It’s got a decent cast and a good premise. What’s not to like? Let’s check it out and see.
GHOST TEAM (2016)
I’ve seen dozens of rip-offs, parodies, and imitations of Blair Witch found-footage movies. In fact, I recently watched a truly awful Marlon Wayans Paranormal Activity parody called Haunted House that was on par with this one. Oh, and I watched Paranormal Whacktivity on Netflix as well, which is a steaming pile of excrement. This one isn’t a found footage movie, although it uses the techniques of shaky video cameras and surveillance footage to no discernible effect.
I was willing to give a goofy ghost spoof a shot. It stars John Heder, Napoleon Dynamite himself, as well as David Krumholtz, Justin Long, and Amy Sedaris. These guys should accidentally create some funny moments, right? And when is running in screaming terror from spooks not funny? I’ll tell you when: in this horribly slow, amateurishly directed slog of a “comedy.” I don’t think there are any jokes in the movie. I’m not talking about good jokes, or even bad jokes. I’m saying that this allegedly comedic movie isn’t interested in coming up with funny jokes that might make you laugh. It’s trying to be funny without actually doing anything that could be construed as funny.
It opens with a long Blair Witch-ian video of John Heder exploring a dark room. Then he sees something. Is it a ghost? Cue boring credits with faux scary music. It’s not a ghost; it’s David Krumholtz, Heder’s terminally depressed friend who was climbing in the window and got stuck. Heder tries to pull him out of the window and this goes on for a while. Everything about this movie drags. I need to mention the horrible direction again. Every shot lasts forever. Scenes of low-energy characters talking just rumble past the point where a good transition to another scene would be in order.
Heder is sort of interested in finding ghosts and Krumholtz is intrigued by aliens, so they decide to assemble a Ghost Team in order to hopefully get cast on a reality show about busting ghosts. That’s the plot. Why wouldn’t the filmmakers make the movie with more comedic potential, a reality show parody where they actually have to deal with ghosts? I mean, that is just sitting right there. Wouldn’t a low-key redo of Ghostbusters with Heder, Krumholtz, and Amy Sedaris as hosts of a paranormal Reality Show be funny? Ooh, I even have a title. Why not call it Ghost Team?
So they take forever assembling the team of nitwits. Justin Long plays his stock imbecile character. The whole movie is set in a somewhat normal world, but Justin Long is in a live action cartoon like Inspector Gadget 2, which I notice is also on Netflix. Forget the eclipse, if you want to scar your eyeballs, try watching that trailer for 30 seconds. Eegads, does that look terrible.
So anyway, 30 minutes in and the team has finally been assembled and they go to a spooky farmhouse. Then there is a ton of walking around darkened rooms and storage sheds. Everyone is moving at half-speed, with only the barest motivation or desire to be there. This movie really needs a Ray Stantz, the over-enthusiastic ghost-hunter who drags the others along with his exuberance. I guess that’s supposed to be Heder, but Napoleon Dynamite is the antithesis of a peppy go-getter.
Another 30 minutes are spent exploring ghostly voices, odd video glitches, and kinda sorta paranormal disturbances. There are more than a couple of scenes of frantic shouting and rushing towards and away from presumed spirits. Then at the one hour mark, we come to the Scooby-Doo reveal. The house is haunted by meth dealers who employ meth addicts to cook meth in a shed. Okay… Then the meth heads chase our hapless heroes around for another 30 minutes. There are many captures and rescues and a weak sequence where Justin Long goes Rambo with a paintball gun on the meth heads in a zombie movie parody. I didn’t laugh. Paintball sequences and zombie armies have both been done to much funnier effect on Community years before this came out. I guess the filmmakers were too lazy to rip that off properly, either.
So let’s just say I wasn’t impressed. If there was any energy devoted to the pacing of the movie, I can see where you might have something. The actors are giving it their all but they’re flailing. Krumholtz almost made me laugh when he escapes capture by punching the fat meth dealer in the nuts in a fit of comic berserker rage. That’s the funniest scene in the movie.
BOTTOM LINE:
Ghost Team is terrible. I got more laughs from a 30 second commercial for Ghosted coming soon to a TV near you than I did in this entire movie. This movie is very dull, with endless flashlight wanderings in the dark. Just look at the boring and repetitive stills and you get a good idea of what to expect. The filmmakers could’ve saved money from not hiring Justin Long and bought a couple ghost special effects. That would’ve helped. But the biggest problem is the movie just isn’t funny. In fact, the last hour of the movie doesn’t resemble a comedy at all, just a badly shot, chill-free horror movie that’s not trying or succeeding at being scary. Ghostbusters proved that ghosts are scary-funny. Let’s see someone come up with an original spin on that idea and you’d have a movie we’d want to watch. But for the time being, please don’t see any more Blair Witch rip-offs. And especially don’t watch Paranormal Whacktivity. Because that movie WILL give you nightmares.