Ghost Town (1988) [Blu-Ray]

Director: Richard Governor

Cast: Franc Luz, Catherine Hickland, Jimmie F. Skaggs

Release Date: Now Available on Blu-Ray

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Film Rating: 6/10
Disc Rating: 6.5/10

 

Synopsis:

When a modern-day sheriff’s deputy is lured to a desolate, spooky ghost town in search of a missing woman, he comes face-to-face with a malevolent spirit from the town’s past. The spell of death and suffering over the undead townspeople must end to set them free from eternal pain. The horrors of a possessed outlaw, in a time-suspended dimension are only the setting for a frightening battle for the mind, nerves and flesh.

After a young bride to be mysteriously vanishes on a barren dirt road, young Deputy Langley (Luz) heads out to explore the mysterious scene where the woman’s car oddly still remains. Before Langley realizes what is occurring, he’s suddenly pulled into a seemingly deserted ghost town with a number of inhabitants who still appear to be living in the past. As things begin to reveal themselves, Langley discovers that the town’s inhabitants are not of this world and are in fact spirits tied to this cursed town by its sadistic controller and outlaw, the evil Devlin (Skaggs), and Langley just may be the towns last hope at redemption, as well as the sole chance the missing girl has of getting out of this haunted town alive.

Directed by Richard Governor (along with Mac Ahlberg to my understanding, although Ahlberg is uncredited) in what appears to be his sole filmmaking credit, ‘Ghost Town’ also features a number of smaller but likely familiar cast members, especially for the genre fans out there. The cast includes Franc Luz (When Harry Met Sally… and numerous TV series guest roles), Catherine Hickland (Witchery & TV’s One Life To Live), Jimmie F. Skaggs (Oblivion & Puppetmaster), Bruce Glover (Chinatown & Popcorn) and more, most of whom deliver fitting, yet often somewhat goofy performances in each of their respective roles.

Fans of the goofy 80’s Horror Western ‘Ghost Town’ will certainly want to make sure to pick up a copy of Scream Factory’s Blu-Ray release to add to their collections. While it may not include any supplemental material whatsoever, fans should nonetheless be thrilled to see this cult classic finally arrive home in high definition for the first time ever. The release also delivers quite the impressive high definition video and audio presentations, especially for such a likely low budget film shot nearly three decades ago. For those who might not have had the pleasure of ‘Ghost Town’ prior and have been meaning to check it out, I can’t imagine a better possible viewing manner than this Blu-Ray release to do so.

VIDEO:

The Blu-Ray release of ‘Ghost Town’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation utilizing a 1.78:1 Aspect Ratio. The video presentation looks surprisingly fantastic here, especially when taking into consideration the age and likely minimal budge of the film, delivering a sharp and detailed presentation throughout that not only looks outstanding but retains a number of the source imperfections and grain, perfectly complimenting this low budget horror western. It holds up impressively during even the fast paced and darkly lit sequences, never causing anything occurring on screen to become negatively affected or indiscernible in the slightest. Overall, this is a very solid high definition video presentation that should easily satisfy the fans.

AUDIO:

The Blu-Ray release features a lossless 2.0 Stereo DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. This lossless stereo soundtrack sounds quite remarkable for what it is, providing a consistently sharp, clean and balanced audio presentation that more than holds up, delivering the numerous action oriented auditory effects with impressive clarity and never causing any dialogue which may be occurring simultaneously to become distorted or inaudible at any point. Overall, this is a very solid 2.0 DTS-HD MA soundtrack that should have the majority of folks quite pleased.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Blu-Ray release of ‘Ghost Town’ does not contain any bonus content whatsoever, the one area of the release lacking.

*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They additionally will suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.

Film Rating: 6/10
Disc Rating: 6.5/10

‘Ghost Town’ is now available to own on Blu-Ray from Scream Factory

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