Ghosts of War (2020)

The wife and I watched this on Amazon Prime. While the ending could have been played out a little better, I felt like we enjoyed the movie.

Fmovies: Beautifully shot with great cinematography, but the story gradually disappoints because its thematic ambitions add more clutter than depth to a story that's most effective at its simplest. The convoluted "twist" either needed to be omitted, or expanded upon with another 15+ minutes. It's as if the budget ran out and everyone just wrapped it up as fast as they could with no regard for a cohesive storyline. It's a shame, because it had potential. It's a generous 6/10 from me.

So much promise in this film. Good acting, great setting and location, pretty much everything a quality film needs, just to fall off at the end.

Everything was looking good, the final "twist" was a little outrageous, though they lead up to it pretty well, littering little clues here and there, letting the audience know things weren't quite what they appeared. It just fell off short of any real resolution though, leaving the story open-ended.

Would have been a 8/10, but had to dock points for not properly finishing an otherwise good film.

Ghosts of War fmovies. Ghosts of War started out great. It felt like it could be the prefect combination of Band of Brothers and House on Haunted Hill. The premise is simple: U.S. World War 2 soldiers ordered to hold down a strategic location in France, which happens to be a haunted chateau where Nazi soldiers previously committed horrible crimes. I really had high hopes for this film but as it progressed those hopes diminished. The setting is great and the film relies on appropriately creepy atmospheric tension. I mean they're in a really big creepy castle full of strange occurrences. Whats not to like about that? On top of that, the main cast of soldiers were likable. I enjoyed seeing Theo Rossi, who you might recognize as Shades from Marvel Studios/Netflix' Luke Cage series. Alan Ritchson, Brenton Thwaites, and Kyle Gallner, my favorite of the group who played U.S. army sniper Tappert, where all very good.

Unfortunately....and this is a big huge deal-breaker for me, the ending did not live up to the rest of the film. This is me being nice about it. To be honest it infuriated me. It made me feel like I wasted 1hr and 34 minutes getting invested in this story which suddenly transformed into something that I was not expecting nor wanted. All they had to do is stick with the theme of WW2 soldiers stuck in a haunted house during war. That's it. How they managed to ruin the last part of this film defies logic. Someone should be fired over this horrendous decision. I want to recommend it based on how good most of the film was, but the ending completely destroyed my recommendation. Yes, it's THAT BAD.

I have absolutely no idea why people are complaining about the ending. I absolutely thought it was brilliant. In fact I liked the ending so much I'm giving it a 9. Without the twist ending I would have scored it a 7. I like a movie that subverts genre so you can't predict where it's going. To tell more would spoil the fun. I enjoyed it so much I went back and re-watched it multiple times. That's how good it is!!!!

This is not an action war movie and more a mix of war, mystery, drama, supernatural and even Sci-Fi. The character development is well done and the story just pulled me in. I could not predict where the story was going which is why it's so enjoyable. And the ending is bonkers but beautifully ties everything together. Simply brilliant. I was about to pass on this because of the lame title and cover art plus I'm not into ghost and horror movies. The poor reviews didn't help either but I'm glad I took a chance. This is one of the best original movies I've seen. It's right up there with Get Out.

Looking at the reviews I am not sure why people are complaining about the ending. I really liked the ending as it breaks horror conventions and it even fits in with the clues dropped in the first and second act. Maybe viewers were looking for more horror type fare which this is but is more than that. The story also nicely wraps around itself from beginning to end and maybe that's why viewers were disappointed as there were still loose ends and unanswered questions. I definitely enjoyed it and IMO it's worth a watch.

The first half of this movie is actually interesting and this movie blends a WWII theme with a paranormal theme quite well. However after the initial setup has passed this movie stalls and can't seem to find out how to best continue the action or wrap up an ending. Some jump scares and a few creepy scenes but nothing overly engaging or worth noting.

Then it's almost like the director had to wrap up shooting or ran out of money as the ending is rushed and is over in maybe 5-8 mins. Eric Bress writes and directs this and is most noted for the Final Destination series and the Butterfly Effect, 10-15 years ago. Sadly he hasn't created nothing in between now and then and hasn't learned how to create a good ending yet.