Pay the Ghost (2015)
Starring Nicolas Cage, Sarah Wayne Callies, Lyriq Bent
Directed by Uli Edel
There comes a point when you’ve just got to realize that initially, you’re swimming in the safe end of the pool – your feet can still touch, there are very few other waders around, and the state of relaxation is at a medium range. As you begin to move farther out towards the deeper end, your toes start to lose the floor, your movements become a little more labored, and an uneasy feeling of unknowing begins to surround you.
What I’m babbling about is the example of director Uli Edel’s “spectral” thriller, Pay the Ghost – while it looked as if the idea of a child abduction film was gaining steam, it quickly jumped off the high dive towards a stagnant (and standard) supernatural fare that’s been witnessed before.
Cage plays Mike Crawford, a teacher who, alongside his wife, Kristen (Callies, known most notably as the cheatin’ bride Lori from “The Walking Dead”), lives a normal existence with their young son, Charlie (Jack Fulton). Mike’s long days keep him behind the eight ball on more than a few occasions, leaving Kristen to pull off the bulk of the parenting duties. One night during a Halloween parade, Charlie is literally abducted in the blink of an eye, momentarily asking, “Can we pay the ghost?” right before he disappears. Now the scramble is on – Mike is beside himself with grief, and Kristen dishes out the blame beatdown on her hubby.
One whole year passes with virtually no leads to be found, and a solemn detective (Bent) is breaking his back in the hopes of turning up some clues. Mike then begins to see visions of his child reaching out to him in all places throughout the day, leading him to delve into some very unsafe places and deal with various unsavory types, including a dreadlocked Stephen McHattie as a homeless man in a rock-solid cameo appearance. As the movie rolls on, we find out the reasoning for Charlie’s vanishing, and it’s honestly less than plausible, completely abandoning the whole child abduction premise and offering up something incredibly goofy altogether.
Now anyone could look at this film upon first glance and say, “Oh no, not Nicolas Cage!” – but he actually plays a solid part as the inquisitive father who is so overwrought with grief that he loses sight of where he needs to be in his life, and Sarah Wayne Callies is equally as strong in her role of the protective mother who gives up hope on her husband – strong stuff, indeed. Unfortunately, it’s the direction that the movie takes that will prove to be its undoing, with the scare level bottoming out and the tenability factor trailing right behind it. I recommend this film only if you are willing to shut it off about a third of the way through.
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Film
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