Ghost Town Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

Ghost Town Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 27, 2015

One of the more unintentionally hilarious elements of The Bubble 3D was the fact that a trio of characters traipsed through a town that seemed to have sprung up from some lost Twilight Zone episode, though the focal characters never really seemed to pay the weirdness much mind, happily going about their business (until it was too late, of course) even as they were surrounded by completely bizarre events. Much the same ambience pervades the fitfully engaging 1988 entry Ghost Town, a film which first sees a comely young runaway bride named Kate Barrett (Catherine Hickland) encountering some kind of paranormal phenomenon which whisks her off to an unseen realm. Later, a deputy sheriff named Langley (Franc Luz) is sent to find out what happened to her and he, too, encounters a rash of weird happenings, none of which ever seem to suggest to him that he has in fact lapsed from the twentieth century back a hundred or so years to become involved in a purgatorial limbo involving a town which long ago had the misfortune of not standing up to a dastardly villain named Devlin (Jimmie F. Skaggs).

Ghost Town plies a middle ground somewhere between traditional western tropes as found in High Noon and spookier elements that are culled from the horror genre. The film is a bit too lethargic in actually getting to the parts that will appeal to most horror fans, and the western elements never really gel since they’re suffused with such a paranormal aspect. The plot is old hat (stetson?), with a long ago crime needing to be avenged in order for the townsfolk to move on to their alotted spaces in heaven (and/or hell). Performances run the gamut from scenery chewing (Skaggs) to laconically competent (Luz) to not quite ready for prime time (Hickland).

Ghost Town Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Ghost Town is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78. Once a bit of wobbliness and fuzziness end with the credits sequence, things settle down into a rather nice looking presentation here, one with a naturally resolving grain field and good palette reproduction across the entire spectrum. Detail is excellent in the many brightly lit outdoor scenes. Some of the effects like stop motion look slightly soft and variable, but generally speaking sharpness is commendable. A few dimly lit interior scenes don't provide a wealth of shadow detail, but there are never any real problems with outright crush.

Ghost Town Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Ghost Town features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track which may not offer tons of depth, but which more than adequately supports the film's dialogue and glut of sound effects. There are quite a few fun foley effects in the film which are rendered with good vividness, and prioritization is excellent throughout.

Ghost Town Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements of any kind on this Blu-ray disc.

Ghost Town Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's nothing very surprising about Ghost Town, other than how long it takes Langley to figure out what the frell is actually going on, and the film's predictability tends to undercut any dramatic momentum or suspense. There are a couple of gruesome kills in the film which may satisfy horror fans who have set the expectations bar appropriately low. Luz makes for an appealing hero (even if Langley is a bit dunderheaded), and Skaggs is certainly a memorable villain. Technical merits are generally very strong for those considering a purchase, though some may wonder why this film wasn't coupled with something else per Scream's typical "double feature" approach for these niche horror titles.