- Directed by Bron Theron
- Written by Bron Theron
- Stars Jason London, Corin Nemec, Tiffany Shepis, Jordan Christopher Michael
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 38 minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phUxh8q6m3w
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This has an indie vibe, and it was a well-done one. It’s pretty fun and entertaining overall. The script could have been tightened up a little here and there with a few points that dragged, but it’s a good paranormal mystery. The cast all did a decent job, the makeup was good, and we liked it far more than disliked it.
Spoilery Synopsis
A family sits around a TV and watches a horror movie. They’ve just moved into a new house, and none of them are comfortable there yet. The mother hears strange noises upstairs that night, but nothing’s there. Then she sees something out the window and screams– credits roll.
Freddy Nash gets a phone call and wakes up. He’s a private detective, and his assistant is JY. Nash has a “power” that lets him see the dead. He goes to see the family from earlier. He hears the mother mention that she had a drink before she saw the thing last night, and he gets really skeptical. She mentions that there had been a murder in the house, and that’s why she bought the place so cheaply. He picks up the scent of Xanax on her used glass and suggests that her children drugged her and snuck out last night. The kids admit they were trying to scare their mother.
Freddy and JY drive to Freddy’s old house. We get a flashback to Freddy and his son going for ice cream. A car accident derails their plans, and his son is killed. Since then, he’s been trying to use his powers for good.
We cut to Flint, Michigan, where a woman hears whispering in her house. The electricity blinks; all the usual haunting stuff. Something kills her.
The next morning, Nash gets another call and heads there to investigate. Nash talks about Flint and how he likes to visit there. He meets up with Roberta; she’s the one who called him when her maid was murdered. She explains that the police have no leads, and the dead woman had no enemies.
Roberta shows Nash a video-will from her dead father. He says he’s hidden a treasure, and there are cryptic clues. Roberta says probably the whole town knows about the treasure hunt by now, but she doesn’t know where in the house it could be. Everyone also knows that the house is haunted; their neighbor even wrote a book on the subject.
Nash goes up to the old man’s room and definitely feels something. Ghostly things start happening in the room almost immediately, so he’s not doubtful that this one is real. The neighbor, James, comes over and talks about the people who died in the house.
Nash decides to interview the various family members to see if any of them have a motive for the murder. They go to a motel, and Nash sees a ghost there as well.
They go to see Debbie, who talks about the treasure. Maybe the maid found it, and that’s why she was killed. She tells him about her brother Jake, who used to “urban explore” abandoned buildings in the area. Jake has issues with nearly everyone.
We cut to the bar, and we see Jake being a drunken idiot. After a brief scuffle with JY handling things and shots being fired, Jake tells Nash everything he knows. We then get a flashback that demonstrates JY’s skills. Roberta doesn’t think anyone in her family killed the maid; it must be the ghosts in the house.
That evening, Nash finally spends some time in the “haunted” house. Yeah, it’s haunted, and he talks to old Mr. Dalton. One of the ghosts knocks Nash out. They go out to the cemetery to dig up Mr. Dalton’s “Ex,” along with a box of stock options.
Roberta talks to Jake and Debbie about the situation. She hopes that Nash will find the treasure and solve the murder. Nash and YP catch another detective following them and stash him in the trunk of their car.
They suspect that Roberta’s husband Matthew was having an affair with the dead maid. They find Matthew, Roberta’s husband, hanging in the old house, so they go to the police, who mock him.
Nash gets a call that his ex-wife is in the hospital, and he wants to leave immediately. JY simply rolls a joint and gives him some sage advice. He makes a whole speech about living in the present. Nash decides to go ahead and finish the case.
The owner of the bar that got shot up tracks down Nash and JY’s motel room. He catches up with JY outside the haunted house and hears the other detective banging from the trunk of the car. He opens the trunk, and the two pull guns on each other.
Nash goes back to the haunted house until he hears gunshots outside. Apparently, both guys fired at each other, and it was a tie. JY puts both bodies in the trunk for now.
JY and Roberta come in, and Nash has solved the whole plot. He tells her that he found the treasure in Dalton’s ex’s grave. Jake comes in and wants to split the treasure. Nash explains that both Lynn the maid and Debbie were having affairs with Matthew. Jake’s friend Bill comes in with a gun to take the treasure, but it turns out that the stock certificates are from the Flint City Motor Company and are worthless.
Bill admits that he killed the maid. He’s got the drop on the whole group, but then the ghosts appear to distract him. The police come and take Bill and the whole family away.
We then get a little twist that shows us that Nash has been confined to a wheelchair all the time. He keeps the stock certificates, which are still worth something to collectors.
Commentary
Paranormal detectives are super common in books, but not so much with films, so this is a nice change.
It was filmed in Flint, and they mention that several times during the film. There are digs at the real estate market, the local police response times, and a few other things. We recognized several of the settings since we live in Flint. The character James, who talks about writing a book on the topic, is played by Joe Schipani, who actually did write a book on the topic.
Nash tracks down a lot of leads, which is probably fine in a detective novel, but it’s less interesting on film. The segment where he questions Debbie and Jake is just interminably long. The pacing is a little draggy in other places as well.
I’m not sure about the wheelchair twist in the end; I did notice it was odd that he didn’t knock on doors himself and things, but it was just so out of the blue that it didn’t phase me much. Horror guy Kevin thought that was a cool twist and was impressed with it; As I watched, I thought the character was needlessly quirky, but it all made sense in the end.
Still, there’s a lot of humor and quirky characters here. My only real complaint is that it could have been fifteen minutes shorter by compressing a few over-talky scenes.