Review of Pray for Morning (2006) by James C — 27 Sep 2010

A cast of young actors from 90210, American Pie's Bandcamp and Twilight meet a ghostly Udo Kier in a haunted hotel and he makes their lives miserable by magically breaking their bones. And really, who could blame poor, puffy old Udo, who staggers through this role with an expression that looks like he's waiting for his paycheck.

Eight teenagers decide to spend the night of graduation at the abandoned Royal Crescent hotel, where some other teenagers were slaughtered and mutilated 25 years before. We learn later on that one of those victims was the brother of one of the girls in the current crop, and she cries about it quite a bit, but never explains why she'd want to go back when she knows about what happened the last time. We get a lot of things that don't make much sense here, such as two characters having a fight over a mutual girlfriend while literally running from ghosts, or a character who insists that his screaming friend is "joking" when one of the group was found in a bleeding, crumpled heap just moments before. And there's a teen who was somehow the son of the hotel's owner, who died in 1921. Huh?

Udo Kier is the villain. He's the ghost of a hotel entertainer, a magician, who the hotel owner killed back in the 20's. His hands were chopped off and hidden separate from the body to prevent him from coming back to life. And he had the Book of Hades, which contains some of the worst poetry you'd ever want to hear. Maybe that's why Kier constantly has a look of bemusement on his face. Or maybe he's just wondering how he could have wound up in a lame teen-scream haunted house flick.

This flick is basically "The Shining" meets "The Wizard of Gore" meets "The Hills." Pray for closing credits.