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.