More mediocre Halloween haunts

Thirteen Ghosts" is the new Halloween offering from Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis' Dark Castle Entertainment, the same company that brought us 1999's "House on Haunted Hill." Much like that film, "Thirteen Ghosts" is an interpretation of a classic William Castle horror picture and the results are truly mediocre.\n"Thirteen Ghosts" tells the story of Arthur (Tony Shalhoub), a down-on-his-luck mathematics professor who lost his wife and all his earthly possessions in a tragic house fire. He and his two children Bobby (Alec Roberts) and Kathy (Shannon Elizabeth) now live in relative poverty alongside their live-in nanny Maggie (rapper Rah Digga). This makes no sense whatsoever seeing as how most indigent folks have trouble paying the bills let alone the hired help. This is one nonsensical idea in a film chock full of them. Anyway, Arthur is eventually notified that he and his family inherited the house of his Uncle Cyrus (F. Murray Abraham).\nArthur, Maggie and the kids think this is the end to all of their problems. Boy, could they be more wrong? Cyrus was a world-renowned scientist and adventurer, but when all is said and done he's nothing more than a perverse bastard. His gorgeous, shatterproof glass-encased home (kudos to the production designers) is actually "a machine designed by the devil and powered by the dead." Cyrus captured ghosts under the tutelage of a dweebish ghostbuster wannabe named Rafkin (Matthew Lillard) and placed them throughout the dwelling. \nThe film as directed by special effects artist turned first time director Steve Beck is rather muddled and disjoint. The shots are choppy and seem as though they were cut by a ramshackle lawnmower. True horror, minus one creepy bathroom sequence, is never achieved because viewers aren't given enough time to see what is going on. The acting ranges from serviceable (Shalhoub and, surprisingly enough, Lillard) to poor (Elizabeth and Abraham make their "respective" stints in "Tomcats" and "Finding Forrester" seem brilliant and restrained by comparison). \n"Thirteen Ghosts," as advertised by recent television ads, is rated R for gore, violence, nudity and bad language. This may impress your run-of-the-mill 15-year-old boy, but in all likelihood won't do a whole lot for most filmgoers.