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Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The acting in this movie is really good.

While rehearsing for a stage play, the cast and crew are troubled by strange events that are connected to a mannequin. Hideo Nakata directs this soft re-imagining of his horror film "Ghost Actress" (1996), but this turned out to be a very different film. This is essentially a mannequin horror film, not a ghost film, which is always welcome in my book because the concept has an old school style. Some may criticize this style as being cheesy, but I enjoyed it and they avoided CGI in favor of practical effects.The biggest flaw of this film is the storytelling structure, which is very predictable and incorporates plot points you see all the time in this genre. That does weigh the film down a bit and prevents it from being great. Acting is okay and the characters are on the bland side.Fortunately, the mannequin element makes it worth watching. This is one of the most realistic looking mannequins I've ever seen. Scare tactics range from very good to mediocre, with some freaky scenes near the end. Not sure what some of the other reviewers on this site were watching, because there were only a few jump scares in this one - certainly far less than what you'd see in the "Insidious" franchise."Ghost Theater" is a pretty good flick.

Perhaps it's fitting that most of the movie is set on an opera drama with all of its glamour yet as the play fails so does the movie. This is a very simplistic and outdated attempt on horror, using trick from two decades ago. Granted, there might be a glint of terror in one or two scenes and the lead may be relatable but any glimmer of hope is all buried in plastic rigid stare and expressionless groan.The story revolves around Sara, an inspiring actress and a cursed mannequin used as prop for the play. This ill-fated doll is seemingly haunted and everyone who comes in contact with it is hypnotized into dreadful outcome. At first Sara is quite likable, she's a nice girl who struggles in the business. However, her character soon falls into scream queen fiasco.Its back story may have potential, but it's sloppily presented with sketchy explanation. Any horror is displayed from basic doll motion which is poorly edited to look horrifying, for example with the repetitive odd twitching eyes. This would barely work for retro horror flicks, and here it's pretty ridiculous to be honest. The doll is either looking extremely fake or obviously played by a person pretending to be a doll.What's surprisingly is when things escalate and important moments come the actresses only have one frozen look of disbelief as though they are stepping on gum. It's odd since when they perform for on-screen play, they look more believable. Any momentum eventually becomes silly soap opera banters, and it really turns into a debacle towards the end."Ghost Theater" has a couple of foundations for colorful play, but sadly it only amounts to afternoon TV drama.

I saw this film at a Portuguese horror film festival (MOTELx) about a week ago. I didn't really know what to expect, since there weren't many reviews online, and we were prepared for the possibility of a bad film. Now, was the film really BAD? Not exactly. It wasn't the worst thing I've ever seen - although some parts weren't creepy enough or the acting wasn't on point. However, if you have seen horror films this is just a film with all the horror stories you've already seen. There isn't anything new, the situations aren't unexpected, the story is repeated, the ending is cliché and pretty much everything about this film has been done before. If you aren't an avid/casual horror film fan, or if you're starting horror films now, it might scare you, since you probably won't be used to the usual plot lines. But for someone like me (a casual viewer) or my friend (an avid horror film fan) it was just a pretty normal film, cliché and, to be honest, after a day or two we kind of forgot everything about it (well, not literally, but you get the point). The only thing that stuck with me for good reasons were the main actress' screams during a few particular scenes, which I thought were pretty on point. But, in general, even her acting was just okay. It's not a film I would recommend - even if it's not the worst thing I've seen.