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GHOST IN THE CELL MOVIE REVIEW
Let’s just get out of the way from the get-go that this is in no way beholden to the film that you almost certainly thought of when you saw the title was Ghost in the Cell. There’s no anime referencing here. Instead you get the modern master of Indonesian genre cinema Joko Anwar (Satan’s Slaves, The Queen of Black Magic) trying to fuse together extreme horror, buddy comedy, a prison movie, a big action film, and even kinda-sorta musicals into one coherent piece. Ambitious is definitely a word to describe what Anwar takes on these days. The miracle is, Ghost in the Cell makes it work like gangbusters. Dimas is a journalist trying to finish his last piece before deadline. But his boss is not pleased and rakes him over the coals but shortly afterwards, a mysterious force takes ahold of his boss and slaughters him, leaving his pieces displayed like the artistic grand guignol corpses on the tv show Hannibal. Blamed for his death, poor wimpy Dimas is sent to prison where his fellow prisoners assume he won’t last long, especially after it’s clear that someone has it out for him, giving him a cellmate known for being a psycho killer. After the mysterious supernatural force delivers another horrific art piece out of killing the cellmate, Dimas’ fellow prisoners start to piece together the supernatural puzzle. Before it’s all over, many will die in a spectacular fashion, huge fights will deliver the solid action, and there will be multiple dance numbers. Seriously. Chris, Martin, and Mike dug the hell out of Ghost in the Cell (now perhaps playing at a theater near you…dude, go see it with an audience) and they rant about it accordingly here.
DIRECTED BY: Joko Anwar
STARRING: Endy Arfian, Abimana Aryasatya, Yoga Pratama, Mike Lucock, Danang Suryonegoro, Lukman Sardi, Kiki Narendra, Bront Palarae, Aming, Tora Sudiro, Arswendy Beningswara, Morgan Oey, Haydar Salishz, Dewa Dayana, Marissa Anita, Rio Dewanto, Radja Nasution, Almanzo Konoralma, Faiz Vishal, Jaisal Tanjung, Ho Yuhang, Magistus Miftah
YOUR REVIEWERS
Christopher Lawrence Cox (Founder, Da Boss, Digital Noise, Highly Suspect Reviews, Screener Squad, Deliberations of Doom)
Born in the wilds of northern Virginia, Chris managed to put all of his survival skills to use and barely escaped with his life to Austin Texas in 1992 where ever since he’s dabbled in everything from plumber’s assistant to sandwich maker, from band to bar and theater management. An opportunity to see theatrical release films for free by becoming a critic on a local public access show called “The Reel Deal” turned into a full-time job when Chris and his friends decided to take it to the internet. They built the site Spill.com, adding multiple podcasts and animated features, to no small amount of success. During this time, a fortuitous friendship sprung up between Chris and young Brian Salisbury, who was also a local film critic, and they merged their forces of will, and their laundry list of ideas for shows, to eventually build this community of critics. While Brian eventually followed his heart to a new family, Chris continues on with a cast of colorful folks from all over the country (and a few others).
Martin Thomas (Highly Suspect Reviews, The Original Gentlemen)
In addition to having been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king…Martin Thomas has also been a professional comic book artist (Marvel, DC, First Comics, etc.), a TV personality (The Reel Deal), and a cartoon character (“Leon” from Spill.com). Currently, he can be found podcasting up a storm at DoubleToasted.com when he’s not one of “The Original Gentlemen.”
Mike J. McAllister (Screener Squad, Staff Writer, Head Video Editor)
Mike J. McAllister is an award-winning creative jack of all trades, and is pretty competent with most of them. He is a writer, director, animator, video editor, and motion graphics artist. He has tried his hand at nearly every form of artistic expression at least once. He was born and raised in Western Pennsylvania where he fell in love with film, writing and special effects at an early age. His obsession with film would lead him to being locally known as a “human IMDb” and being on a first-name basis with every video store clerk in town. He would study film in Pittsburgh before taking his talents to Austin. Not letting something like Tourettes get in his way, he has produced a handful of animated short films that have won awards from film festivals all over the globe. He has also written several yet-to-be-produced screenplays and TV pilots, with some of them being recognized in screenwriting competitions. He has even created motion graphics and animations for several clients, from movie theaters to Twitch streamers. When not creating or watching films, he enjoys MST3K, classic video games and buying vinyl records. He loves dogs, dropping obscure pop culture trivia and watching travel videos. He currently resides in Austin Texas and can be followed on the Instamagrams at @ohheyitsmikejm. His body of work can be found at his homepage or you can take a gander at his somewhat-impressive IMDb listing here.
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