Ghost Town
DVD
Directed by David Koepp
Starring Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear, Téa Leoni, Jordan Carlos, Dequina Moore
Paramount Home Entertainment
Release Date: December 27, 2008

David Koepp may be best known for writing big studio summer blockbusters such as Spider-Man, Jurassic Park, and last year’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but every few years he gets behind the camera and makes a movie that has an interesting concept but ultimately gets marketed poorly, released at the wrong time, and forgotten about before it even has a chance. Now I’ve never been interested enough to see Koepp’s 1996 directorial debut The Trigger Effect but I did enjoy Stir of Echoes (1999) and Secret Window (2004), his adaptations of short works from Richard Matheson. As a director, Koepp has not found a distinctive voice yet but he manages to make perfectly fine films that should not be overlooked in a day and age where mature, intelligent genre films coming from major studios are in short supply. His latest effort Ghost Town basically suffered the same fate as those I’ve already mentioned, but hopefully the film will find new life now that it is available on DVD.

Ghost Town
Blu-ray Edition
Starring Ricky Gervais, Tea Leoni, Greg Kinnear
Directed by David Koepp
Paramount Home Entertainment
Release Date: December 27, 2008

When I first saw the trailer for Dreamworks’ film Ghost Town on television, I immediately assumed it as another example of a popular TV star making a crappy movie for a big paycheck. I don’t know about you but watching Ricky Gervais gag because of a smelly dog is not funny to me, but maybe I was the wrong target audience for the film. Having just been released on DVD and Blu-ray, I thought I’d give it a try and it turns out the movie’s only mistake was hiring whoever created those terrible trailers.

Ghost Town centers around dentist Bertram Pincus (Ricky Gervais). Pincus is not the nicest nor the most social guy around and it shows in his lack of friends and loved ones. After Pincus unexpectedly dies for a brief moment during a routine surgery, he begins to see dead people. News of someone alive being able to see the dead passes quickly through the ghost community, resulting in ghosts showing up at Pincus’ doorstep. One of the ghosts, Frank (Greg Kinnear), makes Pincus a promise. If Pincus helps Frank’s widow, Gwen (Tea Leoni), Frank will make all the ghosts stop bothering him. Things, of course, go south and Pincus ends up questioning his past, present, and future.