Pay the Ghost (2015)

It's pretty generic "lost my son! someone believe me supernatural forces are at work! i'll go get him myself!" plot. The acting was well done. It wasn't super annoying (if you watched the Last Witch Hunter, it's that sort of quality of writing and acting but the CGI was worse in pay the ghost) Very predictable dialogue and storyline, but I am a fan of horror movies that aren't super gory or too much thriller or jump scares out of nowhere so this was PERFECT for me! I recommend entirely! I like Nic Cage movies and this is another one of his better films. I just like it when he's a dad and not a treasure hunter. I think he's getting to that age that he can't play the dad of young children anymore. He looks over 50!

Fmovies: Is Pay The Ghost a Cage classic like 8mm or Face/Off? Nowhere near it. Is it as bad as some people are making it out to be? No, and at least it's better than guff like Gone In 60 Seconds or Bringing Out The Dead. I mean what's better? A film that at least tries to put together some sort of a story (even if it is a bit lacking) or films that have none or are just earlier versions of Fast & The Furious? I know what I'd rather go with.

Pay The Ghost isn't that fantastic, and I'm not suggesting that it is, but for all the complaints it has received, it's altogether not THAT bad. I mean granted the story has been done a thousand times before and it's loaded with clichés (hard to find movies that don't have clichés to be honest), but this film never sets out to be a fantastic Oscar winning epic. It's a middle-of-the-road Horror film, and you get pretty much exactly what you pay for here. Nothing about the story kept me on the edge of my seat, but nothing about it wanted me to slit my wrists for something better to do either. There were a few decent moments scattered throughout, but it wasn't really all that scary.

Some people moan about him but for the most part I enjoy watching Nicolas Cage. Is he over-the-top in some films? Yes, but generally he's a pretty solid actor. You tend to kind of know what you'll get with Cage. His performance in Pay The Ghost isn't anything to write home about but I think with this type of film & story if he put any more into it, then it would have been too much. I don't generally mind Sarah Wayne Callies', but the characters she plays do tend to rub me the wrong way. Her character in The Walking Dead was like that and her character here did the same.

I'd say to give this film a shot if you like Nicolas Cage films or if there's nothing else better for you to watch, but other than that it's a bit of a watch it and forget it type of movie.

I strongly suspect that, around 2009-2010 or so, Nicolas Cage participated in a secret scientific experiment to have himself cloned, and that since then there are at least three of four Nicks walking around in Hollywood! How else would you explain the large number of Nick Cage vehicles that is getting released each year? I seems that, every time I blink my eyes, two or three titles are added to Cage's filmography here on IMDb. I don't mind, though, and it's even quite clever because I (and surely many others with me) will pretty much watch everything that Nicolas Cage stars in, regardless of the quality. And, granted, a lot of the B-type action/horror movies that he starred in lately are bad. Take "Pay the Ghost", for instance. I probably never would have bothered to continue watching if it weren't for Cage's name prominently decorating the opening credits, as it looks like just another derivative and predictable ghost story with a weak plot and an overload of fake scares. Make no mistake, "Pay the Ghost" IS a forgettable and weak supernatural horror entry, but hey, maybe I was in an exceptionally good mood because I nevertheless enjoyed it. The script is obviously trying to cash in on "Insidious", "Sinister" and every other recently released thrillers featuring ghost children, and Cage strictly acts on automatic pilot, but I was still interested in the plot of his missing son. Charlie mysteriously vanished during last year's Halloween parade and, nearly one year later, his father discovers that several children go missing every year on All Hallows Eve without ever getting found. Mike reunites with his estranged wife and together they stumble upon a harrowing tragedy that occurred nearly three centuries ago. Being a sucker for folklore/urban legend stories involving witchery and burning at the stake, I really dug the tale of Annie Sawquin, and director Uli Edel ("Christiane F.") did his best to insert a creepy atmosphere, decent special effects and eerie scenery. Certain scenes are quite brutal, like the fade of the spiritual medium, and the happy ending doesn't feel too forced. But, like I said, I was in a good mood and Cage himself probably already doesn't remember "Pay the Ghost" anymore.

Pay the Ghost fmovies. Nicolas Cage does so many movies that it's the greatest shame is when he does a movie like this. And it's not that it's an entirely *awful* project to work on - it's a horror movie that doesn't rely on the requisite jump scares that so many mainstream movies that get released in theaters tend to have and has an inkling of a decent premise about a kid who gets taken on Halloween night and a year later it's discovered that it's part of a string of kids who are taken on the night - and yet it's also that it's not very good either. It doesn't give the opportunity for Cage to do something legitimately good (which he IS still capable of, see Green's JOE from 2014 for proof of that) nor is it a place for him to go full bat-s***-cage like Port of Call New Orleans. It's a watchable lump.

It's from director Uli Edel so if you've seen Body of Evidence (where Madonna has sex with people to death and there's a court case about it), and the Baader Meinhoff Complex (which is actually a pretty good accounting of the terrorist group in the 70's), so he isn't exactly a hack... sort of. He's out to basically tell the story that he's been given. The trouble is there isn't a whole of story to give out, except that there are some requisite clichés, such as when the married couple of Cage and Sarah Wayne Callies call upon someone who can talk to 'spirits' or whatnot (Poltergeist and Insidious called...), or the simple fact that Cage is playing a literature professor who on cue is teaching Goethe to his students who give him rapturous applause at the end of his first lecture (and then later when he's all sad that his son is gone and teaching Irving there's just a collective shrug, it's almost like there is no class there). It's full of clichéd elements.

I think it's simply a combination of Pay the Ghost being full of stuff from other movies like the cult in robes (I liked it better in Wicker Man, a Nic Cage bat-s*** movie I'd rather be watching) or that it's execution is just lazy (the CGI vultures that hover over buildings from time to time, but then when it has to be story-driven there's some shadowy figure in a window). The simpler fact is that it's not very scary, and the director seems to be trying to make it scarier through bursts of music and dark lighting that is unconvincing. And yet through all of this, a little of Cage kind of sort of trying is there... in parts. And the actress playing his wife from Walking Dead is okay (though she often has a look in her eyes of panic, which may be for the character but may be uh 'Hey, can someone get me out of here?'). But the general feeling by the end of this is 'ho-hum', and one can only hope Cage is done paying off his tax debts so he can do more things like Joe again.

With its low rating on IMDb and some poor reviews I read, I wasn't expecting much from this ghost/horror flick. However, I found it to be better than I anticipated. It's presented well, and although it probably won't please the die-hard horror fans, it had just enough chills and surprises for me.

Nicolas Cage stars as Professor Mike Lawford, who takes his 7-year-old son Charlie (Jack Fulton), on Halloween night, to a local carnival in New York City. However, while buying some ice cream, Charlie goes missing, and Mike frantically tries to find him to no avail.

Fast forward one year, and Mike has found his marriage, his career, and his own psyche in a tailspin, with no definitive word on Charlie. Mike, though, gets the sense that his son is trying somehow to communicate with him, while his wife Kristen (Sarah Wayne Callies) begins to get the same type of messages from the spirit realm.

With help from a fellow professor (Veronica Ferres) and an Irish celebrant at a traditional Celtic Halloween service, Mike and Kristen begin to finally realize what might have happened to Charlie and what they can do about it.

All in all, this movie directed by Uli Edel and written by Dan Kay, based on a novella by Tim Lebbon, is not going to win any awards for plot originality, as this theme has been used numerous times in other movies. However, it kept me engaged and offered up just enough chills for me to like it.

I think this could be a pretty good movie, but it doesn't develop and pace scenes very well, the script feels poorly edited... the scene where the woman comes and sees the ghost and dies... that whole scene is setup too hastily, it lacks atmosphere and intensity, it misses its mark and is just very lukewarm, and it should have really drawn you in, actually you should have been drawn in already... so this movie suffers from quality directing, pacing, and editing, and the sound engineering also seems a bit of a miss...

A great idea, similar to the movie SINISTER in some ways, but really lacking the cahones of SINISTER...

This movie just got worse using a Celtic symbol for the goddess to make it a story of black magick, when that symbol is used in white magick. "I'm only a school teacher I know nothing about your son" wait five seconds and she knows everything...

Oh boy this movie just gets worse with every passing minute.