Thir13en Ghosts – The Modern Cult Classic – Part One – The Cast
Thir13en Ghosts was a remake of William Castle’s 1960, 13 Ghosts. It follows a family who inherits a home from a relative, only to find out it is haunted by 13 ghosts. The movie went on to receive terrible ratings from critics. MetaCritic score of 30 and Rotten Tomatoes score of 17% of 94 reviews. The audience was only a little kinder with a solid 48% and IMDB gets an average of 5.6 of 87,000.
The legendary Robert Ebert is quoted with this. ‘The Experience of watching the film is literally painful. It hurts the eyes and ears.’
So, why do I think this is a cult classic?
Thir13en Ghosts Cast
Tony Shalhoub – Arthur
Arthur is the grieving widow that is struggling to hold everything together for the family. He is doing his best, which is seeing him struggling to control his temper at times. The opportunity to have a new home from his uncle is too big of an opportunity to turn down. It would be best for his family, and he will have to fight for them.
Tony Shalhoub has always been a big character actor. In the aftermath of this movie, he went on to star in his biggest TV show, Monk. He has always had a strong career, and nothing changed for the star of the movie.
Shannon Elizabeth – Kathy
Kathy is the daughter of Arthur, taking up more responsibility around the home after her mother’s death. She is craving some more independence, which has become difficult for the whole family. It is hard to work out this character’s age because of Elizabeth playing the role. Her look makes her look like someone in their early twenties, but she could easily still be a teenager, with how she is treated at times.
Shannon at the time was fresh off ‘American Pie’ at that infamous scene and had recently done the parody Scream movie ‘Scary Movie’. She has moved away from too many roles, focusing more on her animal and environmental activist side of life now.
Embeth Davidtz – Kalina Oretzia
Kalina has been fighting against Cyrus throughout his whole hunt. She has lost her partner in the battle, leading to her looking to end his horrors tonight. Guiding Arthur through the home, she has a secret left to reveal. One that doesn’t seem to make as much sense in the bigger side of the movie.
Embeth has always had a strong career, from ‘Army of Darkness’ to ‘Bicentennial Man’. She did slow down after this movie, which seems like it was more to do with starting her family.
Matthew Lillard – Dennis Rafkin
Dennis has been working with Cyrus, helping him locate ghosts with his psychic abilities. Anything or anyone he touches can give away the story of their lives. He must take medication to make it through the day because of the side effects. Searching for his money, he ends up helping Arthur make it out of the house alive.
Matthew had already made a big impact in ‘Scream’ and a string of movies through the late 1990s. Ironically Lillard would go on to play Shaggy Rogers in the ‘Scooby-Doo’ movies and voice the iconic character once Casey Kasem retired. I say ironically because in 1985, ‘The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo’ aired, bringing everything full circle. Matthew continued to have a long career-changing how people saw him with the more mature performances on TV. With every Scream release, he gets plenty of attention too.
Rah Digga – Maggie Bess
Maggie is the live-in helper childminder for the youngest member of the house Bobby. She is nonsense when it comes to problems and has become close to Bobby after the tragedy the family suffered.
Sadly, the hip-hop star never seemed to return to the big screen until an upcoming project ‘Stars’. This is in post-production according to the IMDB.
F. Murray Abraham – Cyrus
Cyrus is the estranged uncle that has collected the twelve ghosts. He created the home for them to be contained in but died in the last hunt. It is his fortune, that the family thinks they are receiving. Only he has played the trick on the world, faking his death for his evil play.
F Murray Abraham is the Oscar winner for ‘Amadeus’ in 1985. Being a character actor, he has had an amazing career. Still going strong too. He was the biggest draw for the movie. The film uses his status to help unfold the surprise factor of his early death.
JR Bourne – Benjamin Moss
Benjamin is the lawyer that brings the family to the home. He knows the payday this will offer him, being the typical seedy lawyer type. Once he dumps the family in the home, he looks to make a quick exit via the money. Slipping past the ghosts, making sly comments about each one. Including the Angry Princess, who gets released, seeing try and back up his comments. He will have the biggest death in the film, as a door slices him clean in half.
JR Bourne has gone on to have a successful career, most recently sticking more to TV. he has always been a reliable actor for the type of role he takes on in this film.
Alec Roberts – Bobby
Bobby is the youngest member of the family. Put in the massive house, he can’t help but want to explore. He is drawn to the basement by the ghosts and his fascination with ghosts is even scarier. The rest of the adults spend most of the movie searching for him. As he gets a first-hand encounter with some of the scariest images of the ghosts, The Torse. Alec Roberts chose to step away from acting after this movie to focus on his education.
That completes the Thir13en Ghosts Cast. Part two will be looking at the ghosts
