I Downloaded a Ghost

Year: 2004
Director: Kelly Sandefur
Writer: Jeff Phillips
Genre: Comedy: Family

I Downloaded a Ghost is just a simple made-for-TV Halloween film. It barely focuses on the actual holiday, but it involves a ghost which makes it spooooky! Well, not quiet. In this story, the ghost is of a man who was wrongly accused of a crime and then died. The main character, a young Ellen Page, uses the internet to download some ghost file for her haunted house and somehow it ends up being the accused guy! It makes enough sense for a children's film.

What follows is a pretty standard movie with a lovably dorky lead. This wasn't Ellen Page's first film, but she did get in on it just a year before Hard Candy. It's incredible to imagine just how young she was when that came out, just seeing her so tiny and cute in this film.

The ghost guy is pretty annoying. He's a wannabe stand up comic so expect lots of unfortunate jokes to come from him. The other characters aren't all very exciting but they're about par for the course in these kinds of films. The story doesn't really go anywhere that interesting, but it's okay. The strangest thing really is that if this is a Halloween time film for children, why aren't there more scares to be found? More focus on the guy in a ghost form instead of just hanging around in his ugly shirt? Kids tend to like creative things and fantasy, not dull reality.

What's especially amusing is that only at the very end do you really get to see a "ghost" (in more classic ghost form). Oh well, I can't complain. It was an acceptably amusing romp although I wouldn't watch it again. It might be a nice way to pass an hour and a half with a young child. Or if you want to watch the complete filmography of Ellen Page.