‘Judas Ghost’ Review

Stars: Martin Delaney, Lucy Cudden, Alexander Perkins, Simon Merrells, Grahame Fox | Written by Simon R. Green | Directed by Simon Pearce

Jerry Mackay (Martin Delaney) leads his team of professional ghost hunters into a haunted village hall on a supposedly routine investigation for a tutorial for the Institute. With him are Anna (Lucy Cudden), a psychic to detect and protect the group from psychic attacks, Ian (Alexander Perkins), the tech of the group in charge of streaming the events back to the Institute and monitoring atmospheric changes, and Mark (Simon Merrells) as a cameraman with a dark past here to record the events. However, the group soon find out that the hall is more haunted that they thought, and Mark’s hidden past soon comes back to haunt him.

The phrase ‘cookie cutter’ is the first thing that came to mind when I started to watch Judas Ghost. This is a very basic story, with very typical characters; the cowardly tech, the cocky yet loyal leader, the strong woman who has a bad feeling about this, and the guy with a troubled past that comes in handy in the end. This can be fine if it’s backed up by strong visuals, or just something interesting, but unfortunately this film doesn’t have it.

I was bored of the characters 20 minutes in. Jerry’s attitude set up how this film was going to be. Ian seems to be a more cowardly version of Bryce from the Lara Croft films, which isn’t the best franchise to copy from. Anna could have been an interesting person, and I think was the best acted character of the group, but Mark was just a waste to me. The best character of the whole film is the Judas Ghost himself, played by Grahame Fox, and he appears for what felt like 20 minutes.

The two biggest sins of this film is its predictability and the short run time. As soon as they discussed the different kind of ghosts that they encounter, you know a) how this is going to end, b) what happened to Mark to make him so disturbed and c) who survives. Add that to the 71 minute run time which seemed to suck any attempt at constructing any complexity or twists or any real shocks into this ‘horror’, and it just isn’t a good film.

If low budget, badly written, and predictable horror films are your thing, then sure, give Judas Ghost a watch. If you actually want to enjoy a film, then don’t even bother. It just encourages people to make more of the same.

* 1/5