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This is one that may have slipped past your radar, and if it has, it’s a crying shame, because it is some seriously creepy stuff.  If you want a really powerful horror movie with plenty of punch,  then you need look no farther than Death of a Ghost Hunter.

Presented as being “Based on a true story”, this features ghost hunter Carter Simms, who’s just been offered five thousand dollars to conduct a three day, three night investigation into what’s currently known as the Masterson House.  The Masterson House has a pretty long history involving no less than death, child molestation and religious insanity.  And Carter’s been dropped into the thick of it.

Needless to say, when you hear the phrase “based on a true story”, hang on to your wallet.  Even the slightest sliver of truth in a movie qualifies it for “based on a true story” classification because they need never tell you just HOW based it is.  Let me put it to you this way–if I have a story where an elderly woman bashed a burglar’s head in with a frying pan (and something like that happened not so long ago) and I make a movie about an elderly woman who’s a serial killer, goes around bashing open heads with her frying pan and say that it’s “based on a true story”, it’s not like I’ve lied to you.  There may be some legal differences–I’m not a lawyer–but it’s been my experience that “based on a true story” is little more than a marketing gimmick.

But frankly, that really doesn’t make much difference.  While there will be actual ghost hunters out there who poo-pooh the methods shown in Death of a Ghost Hunter, this is not supposed to be a nonfiction treatise on ghost hunting methodology.  What this IS supposed to be, however, is a horror flick about a ghost hunter.  And when viewed in that light, Death of a Ghost Hunter is solid and well put together.  I spent plenty of time scared by this simple, low-budget ghost hunting movie, mostly because what you DON’T see is almost as freaky as what you DO see.  Yes, of course the ghostly images and EVPs are scary stuff.  But watching the ghost hunters bumble around this house in the pitch black armed with flashlights–where often, all you can SEE is what’s illuminated by the small circle of light–is a spectacularly creepy experience.

I will, however, make an exception for about the last fifteen minutes.  The creepy sort of falls apart in light of this clearly tacked-on ending that makes the sublime mistake of explaining ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING about the movie.  The background on the Masterson House, the background on the characters, what happens TO the killed characters…all of it is just too much exposition, thrown onto the end for little or no clear reason.

But still, I’ve already called the best way to describe Death of a Ghost Hunter.  Leave aside the technical inaccuracies and the shaky definition of “based on a true story” and a truly weak sauce ending–Death of a Ghost Hunter is a spectacularly creepy experience.

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