Ghost Fever Review

The Story goes...
Buford and Benny are two policemen who are sent to the possibly haunted home of two women, who are allegedly over 100 years old, in order to serve an eviction notice. Once inside the creepy house, strange things begin to happen, and the men discover that the house is actually home to two beautiful young ladies. As it turns out, the house is also haunted by the ghost of a mean slave owner, and it is up to Buford and Benny to save the women from the ghost and eviction.

My Thoughts
Saying that Ghost Fever is a strange film is somewhat of an understatement. For being a comedy/horror film, it is neither funny nor scary. Though it does appear that the two stars, Sherman Hemsley and Luis Avalos, are making a real effort to keep this movie alive. I suppose that I shouldn't be too surprised at the lack of entertainment value of this movie since the director (justifiably) chose the pseudonym "Alan Smithee" as the credit for director. For those of you who don't know, Alan Smithee is a fake name that directors use when they choose to disown a film. A main reason for the use of this pseudonym is for when creative control is taken away from directors by the producers.

Generally I try not to be too negative in my reviews, though I will make fun of many movies, but Ghost Fever is just a bad movie. It really isn't even worthy of earning the coveted "so bad it's good" title that has made classics out of some very poorly created films. Tommy Wiseau's The Room is probably my favorite example of incompetence documented on film.

From the initial introduction of the two ghost characters in the first scene, the lack of quality special effects becomes apparent. Usually I don't find cheap effects to be terribly off-putting, but these effects aren't just cheap, they almost seem like the filmmakers were being lazy. And, we're talking your typical congressman type of lazy here.

The jokes are a mix of slapstick and puns...neither of which are actually funny. For the life of me I cannot determine what audience Ghost Fever was intended for. The humor seems like it would be intended for small children (and I'm talking about Sesame Street aged kids), but when I see Sherman Hemsley in a contraption that is designed to crush a man's twig-and-berries, I can only assume that it's intended for older folks.

One of the more infamous scenes in Ghost Fever (of course I mean it's infamous among the 32 people that have actually seen this movie) involves a dancing mummy. Well, it's actually the ghost of the slave owner wrapped in a sheet so that he can engage in a dance-off with Buford and Benny. This jabroni is break dancing, moon-walking, and basically just bustin' a move. I guess it just doesn't make sense because one minute this ghost wants to kill the two men, but then a moment later he's satisfied with just 'serving' them. He's more inconsistent than Lebron during the playoffs.

Oh, the slave owner ghost becomes a vampire 2/3 into the movie as well. Allegedly a voodoo curse turned his cruel behind into a vampire after he died. Don't hurt yourself over-thinking this. Just except it and be glad that you only have  1/2 of 1 hour left.

One of the most surreal scenes in Ghost Fever is a boxing match that takes place between Benny and none other than Joe Frazier. Benny decides to take on the champ in an effort to win money to save the women from eviction. I don't really have too much to say about this one.

Conclusion
Ghost Fever is pretty bad. If you like to watch poorly made movies so that you can laugh at them, then you might find some redeeming aspects of this movie. I usually like schlocky films, but the jokes were just so lame that it was hard to laugh at them for being stupid.

Overall, I would say to just skip this one. With the hour and a half that you would spend with this disaster, you could be watching paint dry.

.5/5