'Gacy House' might be worth visiting

8213: Gacy House (2010)
Starring: Jim Lewis, Matthew Temple, Diana Terranova, Michael Gaglio, Brett A. Newton, Rachel Riley, and Sylvia Panacione
Director: Anthony Fankhauser
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A group of paranormal investigators (Gaglio, Lewis, Newton, Panacione, Riley, Temple, and Terranova) conduct a ghost hunt in the house built on the site where pedophile and serial killer John Wayne Gacy's home once stood. They find more then they could have imagined in their worst nightmares.

"Gacy House" is a film that will appeal to you if you are a big fan of TV shows like "Ghost Hunters" and found footage hoax movies like "Blair Witch Project". You're also going to be willing to overlook the fact that the film is plagued by numerous instances of characters behaving in ways so mind-blowing idiotic that Stupid Character Syndrome doesn't even come close to describing the degree to which badly considered plot dictates override common sense and logic. (The worst of these: A character who decides to bail on the ghost hunt, yet can't seem to figure out to how to use a cell phone to call a cab or to simply walk away from the haunted house.)

The film is mostly well acted and there aren't many instances where you find yourself groaning at the clumsy attempts at maintaining the illusion of reality... although, personally, the film lost credibility when it tried to present itself as actual police evidence, so I never did manage to suspend my disbelief in regards to the events of the film being real. That said, I did find a couple of moments very well done, such as the one where a character is working both with an infra-red camera and a regular camera, so we get to see a ghost invisible to the naked eye attack him in a clever sort of split-screen effect thanks to monitors.

While not as good as "The Last Exorcism" or "The Blair Witch Project", "Gacy House" is still a far sight better than many other attempts at this sub-genre. Still, it's flawed enough that I am giving it the lowest possible of a Five Star rating, and I think it's probably only of interest to the biggest fans of "found footage" efforts.