Themes: Woman In Jeopardy, Technology Run Amok, Serial Killers
Main Cast: Karen Allen, Chris Mulkey, Ted Marcoux, Wil Horneff, Jessica Walter
Release Year: 1994
Country: US
Run Time: 104 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
A serial killer is transformed into a computer virus out to destroy more than your hard drive in this sci-fi thriller. Terry Munroe (Karen Allen), a single mother, is looking for a gift for her boss and visits a computer store, where one of the employees demonstrates a hand-held scanner than can transfer the information from her address book into a software program that will store the information on her PC. Unknown to Terry, one of the employees of the store is Karl Hochman (Ted Marcoux), known in the press as "The Address Book Killer," who likes to steal other people's address books and murder all the people listed within, including the book's owner. Terry accidentally leaves her book behind at the store, and Karl lifts it, but as he drives to her house to strike her off the list first, he is injured in a serious accident and taken to a hospital. While Karl is being given a CAT scan, lightning strikes the building and Karl is transformed into a series of electrical impulses that can travel as computer code from one system to another, or as current through power lines. Soon Terry begins to suspect something is wrong as her friends succumb to attacks by microwave ovens, hot-air blowers, and other household objects. Terry and her computer-savvy son, Josh (Wil Horneff), realize that they're at risk after Karl appears in Josh's virtual reality games; it's up to Bram Walker (Chris Mulkey), a brilliant hacker-turned-computer maintenance technician, to isolate and destroy the Karl virus before it can kill again. The film's soundtrack features such hip-hop stars as D-Nice and Too Short, Schoolly-D, Grandmaster Slice, and Kool Moe Dee. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Horror veteran Rachel Talalay directed this cheesy exercise in terror that owes much to the virtual-reality trend started just two years before with 1992's underdog hit The Lawnmower Man. Featuring an absurd killer that's as menacing as the film's bottom-of-the-line computer graphics, Ghost in the Machine might not deliver the shocks that it originally intended to, but it has found a new life as a unintentional laugh fest. With outlandish kills that include an exploding dishwasher, hand-dryer flamethrowers, and killer microwaves, it's hard not to love every way Talalay cooks up the gruesome proceedings. The flick does benefit from a handful of inventive camera shots that follow the evil electrical currents through appliance cords -- a rather shocking trick considering it precedes David Fincher's same patented gags by more than a few years. A rip-off Terminator 2 ending seals the deal for this sucker, as for the first time in cinematic history, a serial killer is eradicated by an electromagnetic atom smasher -- now if that isn't high concept, then what is? ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
Brandon Adams - Frazer; Rick Ducommun - Phil; Nancy Fish - Karl's Landlord; Jack Laufer - Elliott; Shevonne Durkin - Carol; Walter Addison - Veteran Cop; Carlease Burke - Woman Cop; Nigel Gibbs - Detective; Charles Haugk - Cop; Alix Koromzay - Punk Girl; Michael LaGuardia - Cop; Clayton Landey - Mel; Dom Magwili - Doctor; Edwina Moore - Newswoman; Zach Phifer - Priest; Richard Schiff - Scanner Technician; Charles Stranski - Cop at Police Station; Ken Thorley - Salesman; Chris Ellis - Lieutenant; Mickey Gilbert - Mickey the Driver; Richard McKenzie - Frank Mallory; Don Opper - Man in Office; Rick Scarry - Newsman; Haunani Minn - Nurse; John Miller - Frank Mallory; Mimi Lieber - Marta; Carl Gabriel Yorke - Safety Technician; Matthew Glave - Rookie Cop
Credit
Debra Zane - Casting, David Rubin - Casting, William Osborne - Co-producer, William Davies - Co-producer, Barry Sabath - Co-producer, Isis Mussenden - Costume Designer, Rachel Talalay - Director, Janice Hampton - Editor, Erica Huggins - Editor, Graeme Revell - Composer (Music Score), James Spencer - Production Designer, Ira Shuman - Production Designer, Phil Meheux - Cinematographer, Paul Schiff - Producer, Aron Warner - Producer, Jann K. Engel - Set Designer, Mickey Gilbert - Stunts, William Osborne - Screenwriter, William Davies - Screenwriter
The film is about a serial killer named Karl Hochman (Ted Marcoux), who is known as the "address book killer" due to his habit of stealing the address books of various people, from which he chooses his potential victims. At the beginning of the film, he is nearly killed by a head-on collision with a truck. At the emergency room he is placed in a MRI machine, when a surge, caused by an electrical storm, transfers his mind into a computer. As a network-based entity he plots to continue his killing spree, using the electrical grid, appliances, and the computer network.
He obtains the address book of Terry Munroe (Allen) and begins to go through the list to kill off her friends. (In the film she has a son, Josh, played by Wil Horneff.) Aided by computer hacker Bram Walker (Mulkey), however, they manage to fight back and defeat the killer by introducing a computer virus that traps him at a physics laboratory. Hochman is forced to escape, existing in a form similar to the holograms in the Star Trek: The Next Generationholodecks. The heroes then proceed to activate an atom smasher which appears to draw in the killer and destroy him.
The movie was not generally well received by most critics. Common criticisms were of some sub-par acting and a weak, implausible plot that failed to build suspense.
