Watch Ghost Town: The Movie For Free

Best movie of this year hands down!

Memorable, crazy movie

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Released in 2007, "Dean Teaster's Ghost Town" (or "Ghost Town: The Movie") is a Western that takes place in the East, specifically the Great Smoky Mountains of NC. Maggie Valley has an amusement park called Ghost Town in the Sky (i.e. a Western town on a mountain), which is where the film was made and is now called Ghost Town Village.The scenic beauty of this area was enough to pique my interest. In addition, the movie features the beautiful Renee O'Connor (Xena's sidekick, Gabrielle) in a small role with very few lines and Bill McKinney as the villain (he's always great for such a role; remember him as the perverted mountain man in "Deliverance"?). Other positives include Princess Lucaj as Violet Teaster and DJ Perry as Will Burnett, the good son of the villain (McKinney). Rance Howard is also on hand.This is low-budgeted independent film, of which I'm a fan. Unfortunately, "Ghost Town" is not a good movie despite the positives noted above, it's not even okay; in fact, it's nigh embarrassingly bad. I wanted to quit watching after a mere 10-20 minutes but forced myself to endure to the end. It's as if the 'filmmakers' didn't really know what they were doing.The locations are great and the story could have worked, but they needed to hire a screenwriter, director and editor who knew what they were doing.Needless to say, don't invest in this one unless you're a fan of Renee O'Connor (or any of the other cast members) or you're interested in the Maggie Valley area.GRADE: D-

To the editor of this movie I offer this: Film editing is the art, technique, and practice of assembling shots into a coherent whole. Judging by this simple definition is is easy to note the lack of coherency in Ghost Town. Strike one. Deeper definitions of film editing stress pacing, balance and rhythm. They liken editing a movie to creating a musical composition. Again this movie disappoints. Ghost Town stumbles along more like a drunken sailor rather than a beautiful symphony. Strike two. Finally, other definitions note that editing, when done well, is an invisible art. If the editor has done his job well, the story will appear almost seamless. A film that tells a complete story in a logical and consistent manner, using harmony, rhythm, and appropriate pacing. By the comments listed here it is obvious that the editing job is anything but seamless. Instead we have a poorly constructed quilt that is barely held together with fraying thread of clashing colors. Strike three.

About 20 minutes into this movie you begin to wonder just what is going on. What should have been a straightforward western tale of revenge is muddied up by poor storytelling. Too many cuts back to the back story and confusing choices of shot selection constantly nag at the viewer. Just when you think you have an idea about what is going on, the editor throws something totally irrelevant on the screen and you are left wondering what happened? This is incredibly frustrating! I can "see" the story on a basic level. I can sense what the film is trying to do. But it as if the editor is purposely trying to throw a wrench into the works. I am left with a simple question: Why would he do that? Nothing is more straightforward than a western. The good guys and the bad guys are easily distinguishable. And the plot is usually quite linear. Why then would you take a simple story such as this and assemble it in such a dyslexic manner?

This feature is about as exciting as a plate of tripe. Overall I'd say even though an edit could possibly fix some of the incredibly draggy and droopy-dog scenes, on other hand if a film drags and drags and droops and drags and droops and droop-drags, then the director either did not direct according to the script, or there was no script, or the script is as bad as the film.Perhaps if this was sliced to tiny bits, if each 20 minute scene is cut down to the actual 2 minutes or less of actual informational footage, then maybe we'll have a story that interests me. Now that I read a few of the oher reviews, I see I am not alone in this, and the long scenes with no cuts just does not work here.Hitchcock tried it in Rope, but Hitchcock is Hitchcock and Rope has some astounding things in it. But as this film stands, I am not interested.The first thing I watch, if a film has extras, are those extras. Well, the extras in this film seem to be a bunch of self absorbed people patting each other on their self-absorbed backs and making jokes which exclusively exclude the viewer.As Viewers, we are alienated, even from the "Making Of" featurettes on the DVD release I found. One featurette was a very long clip of two guys talking to each other and we have no idea what they are discussing except that they use a few cursewords here and there.The inclusion of greats Rance Howard (Ronny Howard's Pop) and Renee O'Conner (Gabriella from Xena Warrior Princess) does not help matters any. We really don't have any idea what is going on at all. I'd say, before editing this, first write a script and then decide on a way of filming it, because this attempt seems to be a struggle and the struggle fails. I got about 15 minutes into the film and was forced to shut it off- To quote Dennis Weaver from the 1958 Orson Welles film "Touch of Evil"It's a Mess! It's a stinkin Mess!"so I must say: "It's a Mess! It's a stinkin Mess!"Independent Film is one of my interests... I would be interested in this, but for the fact that there is practically nothing there that is interesting. Nothing validates the effort I made in obtaining this film.When I obtain a film to view, I expect it to be worth the rental fee at Blockbuster. That said, I did not rent it from there. This film may be found at Amazon.com, and I do not feel that the $18.00 price tag matches the value of the film contained in the DVD.(Edit) Ahhh- I see at least 1 person does not agree with me. Your perogative, but that does not change the fact that this film is wanting in several hundred ways.