'Ghosts of War' Review: Talent of actors wasted in a predictable and out of logic haunted house war movie
Spoilers for 'Ghosts of War'
To most people, World War II was a horror story in itself. But what happens when you take soldiers who have lived through that nightmare and plop them in a haunted house bearing the scars of Nazi presence? That's the question that 'Ghosts of War' answers with arguable efficiency. As intriguing as the premise is, we can't help but be a little disappointed by the end product.
'Ghosts of War' aspires to be more than it actually is. With tired tropes and tricks of the trade, the movie is predictable at best and boring at its worst. That's not to say the actors themselves haven't done the best they could under the circumstances. Unfortunately, the talents of people like Brenton Thwaites and Alan Ritchson of 'Titans' fame are wasted on a plot that picks up threads and drops them as if it was actually written in a haunted house.
There's not much in the way of logic here. You know how the stars of a Sam Raimi movie are basically all idiots and that's why their poor choices make sense? Well, the way Eric Bress has framed this story, the stars are actually capable people, which just makes their idiocy a whole lot more confusing. The only reason we can think of why these soldiers wouldn't just run out of their haunted French chateau is that being in 1944, they've never been to a haunted house attraction.
That last part may not be factually correct but neither is the movie so we're just going to roll with it. The further you get into the movie, the more it becomes clear that these people are making drastically irrational choices that can't be explained away, even by the catch-all twist at the end. Failing to set up a watch despite being behind enemy lines, turning a blind eye to obvious paranormal phenomenon, these are only a sampling of the illogical reasons the stars take.
Perhaps this movie may have done well a few decades ago but after the high-quality horror content that we've had over the last couple of years, it's hard to see this movie as anything but a tacky mess. 'Ghosts of War' had its VOD release on July 17.
