Nicolas Cage’s latest thriller PAY THE GHOST reviewed
Such is the fate of many a Nicolas Cage starring film these days that film-goers only watch them to witness the Oscar winning eccentric burst into stylized hysteria. And theres nothing necessarily wrong with that. Love him or dont, Cage is one of film historys most fascinating performers, a relentlessly physical presence whose jazz-informed acting results in larger than life turns that are often more magnetic than the movies that house them.
But for every mediocre genre potboiler Cages mania takes control of (see the recent RAGE for a particularly useless picture made notable by at least two moments of patented Cage freak-out) you get a serious work like David Gordon Greens white-knuckle JOE, a picture that offered the actor at his most restrained and soulful. German director Uli Edels eerie new horror-thriller PAY THE GHOST offers the best of both Cage worlds, giving the actor a finely etched character to play as well as an abstract, phantasmagorical cinematic canvas for him to explore. Its a sold bit of acting in an effectively upsetting picture.
The movie sees Cage playing a familiar role, that of a doting father to a young son and husband to a kind, loving wife (THE WALKING DEADs Sarah Wayne Callies). The NYC based family (the film was actually shot in Toronto last year) are happy and stable but after the boy vanishes during a frenetic Halloween parade, they quickly transgress into misery. The police come up snake eyes (SNAKE EYES another great Cage performance!) and after months of blaming each other and obsessing, the couple split. And although the world keeps turning, Cage never gives up searching for the lad, fixating on his sons last words, an odd request for his dad to pay the ghost. Slowly, surely, the couple reconnect and become immersed in a serpentine supernatural mystery that involves a cabal of missing children and long-dead woman who may or may not have been a witch.
Narratively PAY THE GHOST isnt terribly original; with its amalgam of parenting horror and vengeful spirit hocus-pocus, it doesnt take a Rhodes scholar to anticipate its turns. What it does offer is an absolutely first rate example of craft. Edel is one of the great contemporary stylists; a European filmmaker who took Hollywood by storm with his aching, unflinching and gorgeously produced 1989 adaption of Hubert Selby Jr.s grimy morality tale LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN and then blew that goodwill with the slick but stupid Madonna/Willem Dafoe uber- sex bomb BODY OF EVIDENCE. Since then his star has risen and fallen with a spate of inconsistent pictures, but his work has always exemplified richly detailed texture and atmosphere. PAY THE GHOST is no exception.
A framing story with screaming children hiding under hacked floorboards is harrowing and baroque and his sense of urban urgency is skillful, making the city itself into treacherous pudding of noise, scowling faces and decay. Cage takes what could have been another post-TAKEN Liam Neeson-esque roles and really gives it his all, pulling back when necessary and believably unraveling when required. Matching him is the lovely Callies, who takes the thankless histrionic mother part and sculpts a complex portrait of a woman well past the edge of reason but still holding on to hope.
If PAY THE GHOST has any real flaw, its in the moments of cheap jump scares that pop forth during some of the more overtly horrific sequences. They feel inserted to please audiences seeking a more hoary horror picture and if work against the subtler, atmospheric brand of terror Edel otherwise works so hard to evoke. But these minor missteps arent deal breakers. PAY THE GHOST is by no means an essential genre work, but it is a thoughtful, emotionally sophisticated and handsomely produced movie, both quality Cage fare and further evidence of Edels talents.
PAY THE GHOST is out now in limited theatrical and VOD from RLJ Entertainment.
