100 Feet

A woman fresh out of prison for the murder of her abusive husband, finds herself being haunted by his ghost in their old home. Why doesn't she leave? Because she's still on house arrest, if she leaves, she goes back to jail.

Except for his collaborations with Kathryn Bigelow, I have not been too impressed by the work of Eric Red as a writer or director. Sadly, 100 Feet is no exception. The premise is acceptable, I guess, but it just descends in to the normal bullshit I hate about ghost movies. For example, sometimes the woman physically struggles with the ghost, fighting him off... exactly how much strength does a ghost have? How does one overpower a ghost? Does the ghost get tired? Why are ghosts sometimes solid and sometimes intangible?

I don't hate haunted house or ghost movies as a rule; Sam Raimi's horror movies are every bit as arbitrary as 100 Feet, but his are staged for maxim entertainment. Raimi's filmmaking is exuberant, glossing over any metaphysical concerns. Red's direction is rote, and therefore I'm disengaged from the film and left to ponder the implausibilities.

There are isolated moments in this film that work, it's not a terrible film by any means. For instance, I've seen a lot of movies where someone is hiding a dead body and a small clue threatens to give them away; this is the first time I've seen one where they hid the body in the ceiling, the ceiling slowly gives way, and the corpse falls out and lands on a cop. That was almost worth the price of admission right there.