i am a ghost (cinema history class)

Session: Bring Your Own Movie Month, week 1
Movie: I Am a Ghost (2012)
Directed by H.P. Mendoza
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
Emily is dead and endlessly wandering the house she haunts. Until a medium comes along to help her figure out what comes next. Hilarity ensues.

Background:
Ghost was my choice to kick off BYOM month. Blair and I were friends with director (and writer) HP Mendoza when this came out in 2012. I first saw it at an Asian film festival that year, and at that festival HP gave me a copy on DVD. Our friendship went by the wayside, so it may seem odd that I chose this movie. But the fact is I was thrilled when it came out, and I still associate that feeling with this movie. It is also one of two feature films that list me in the credits.

Reaction:
This was the third annual BYOM month. For the first two, I showed The Rocky Horror Picture Show and its sequel, Shock Treatment. Neither of those went over particularly well (and the second one was really a bit of a cheat on the genre), and expectations weren't very high for this.

But this got good reactions. There was general agreement that this was a compelling little story and that, once the action picked up it was quite riveting. Keith noted that HP did a good job handling some pretty unsettling material, and Sean appreciatively noticed some influences from Asian horror movies.

Some of the flaws in the film were noted and commented on. For example, it does seem to be interminably slow at the beginning. Another issue that was annoying is that Emily's time period is not well defined; the props and language are from a variety of time periods and don't fit together coherently. I suspect that's a result of the limited budget -- this movie was made for $10,000. But it is possible that that was a purposeful directorial choice. Or sloppiness. I'll never know for sure.

There are other flaws, but I won't catalog them here. 

There were alspo some strong elements. The scene where Emily opens the door into nothingness was well done, and the sequence where she sees a variety of images of herself in the house is truly haunting.

I was a bit apprehensive about showing this film, but it all worked out in the end.

The ratings:

• Joe: 9.3 to 9.4
• Dave: 9 
• Sean: 2 (on a scale of 1 - 4)
• Scott: 6
• Ethan: 5
• Keith: 9

I Am a Ghost passes the Bechdel Test.