Ghosts of Monday (2023)
Directed by Francesco Cinquemani
Written by Francesco Cinquemani
Starring Mark Huberman, Julian Sands, Elva Trill, Joanna Fyllidou
Release Date January 23rd, 2023
Published
A television producer travels to Cypress to make a reality show about a supposedly haunted hotel in the new horror thriller Ghosts of Monday. Julian Sands stars as the host of the documentary, a man desperate to see an actual ghost after years of documenting non-haunted hauntings. Mark Huberman is the documentarian, the man charged with keeping his host in line while also investigating any potential haunting. Naturally, this being a horror thriller, ghosts do start showing up.
In the 80s and early 90s, Julian Sands was a much-respected leading man with international acclaim. It's been years since Sands has stood at the center of a film and Ghosts of Monday is a strong demonstration as to why. Sands is hammy and completely checked out throughout his short stint on screen. Early on, his character is shown to be a bit of a drinker and it's hard not to imagine that the actor was getting a tad bit method in his performance. That's one thing that might explain Sands' rather bad performance.
Ghosts of Monday relies heavily on a creepy soundtrack filled with atonal shrieks and symphonic flourishes. It's not a great soundtrack but at least it's trying harder than the rest of the movie to be creepy. Most of Ghosts of Monday is stultifyingly mundane. Clues are given as to the nature of the haunting at the hotel, and the link one of the main characters has to the haunting, but these clues aren't particularly intriguing. The film employs some of the tricks of reality TV ghost hunting shows and that only serves to show how low rent the whole movie is.
When your movie has to borrow from YouTube ghost hunting channels to create even a notion of tension, it's not a good sign. The film's best asset is being only a few minutes longer than your average episode of a ghost hunting reality show on YouTube. At a slight 75 minutes with credits, Ghosts of Monday doesn't linger. That's the nicest thing I can say about the movie however as nothing about film ever rises to being more than passably, professional.
Find my full length review at Horror.Media
