“Been in London for two days now. Killed someone, totaled a $70,000 car, and 21 people I’ve never met hate me.”

Justin’s rating: 21 is the loneliest number

Justin’s review: There’s a segment of geeks and filmgoers who can’t get enough of hating Paul WS Anderson as a hack who makes cinematic trash. And while I think there’s certainly enough steaming garbage in his filmography to warrant that criticism, I can’t quite turn my back on a director who had an amazing four-film streak in the ’90s and early 2000s with Mortal Kombat, Event Horizon, Soldier, and Resident Evil.* Those weren’t high art, mind you, but they were deliciously entertaining scifi and horror action romps.

During this streak, Anderson wrote and directed a television movie as a proposed pilot that was never picked up. The Sight was his take on the whole Sixth Sense phenomenon, and I’d been keen to see that intersection between this director and that concept.

Card-carrying Brat Pack member Andrew McCarthy (Mannequin) is Michael Lewis, an architect who discovers that he’s developed… THE SIGHT. No, it’s not the sight where you see unicorns and winning lotto numbers everywhere, but rather the cruddier one where restless spirits keep pestering you with their incessant neediness.

Lewis finds this out on a trip to London, where he’s doing some work on a historic hotel — alone, mind you — that’s populated with enough specters to keep the Ghostbusters in business year-round. There’s also a mysterious room of mystery that must remained sealed at all costs,** which everyone initially seems super-cool about. I mean, me? I’d immediately suspect that this would be the corpse room with bunk beds to hold even more bodies.

As he’s poking around the hallways of this gothic supernatural crossroads, there’s also the news that a modern-day Jack the Ripper is on the prowl in London looking for kids. I’m sure that won’t factor into this story whatsoever. Oh wait, it totally does, because the ghosts do consulting on the side and can help him track down this serial killer. This is accomplished mostly by touching the ghosts — which he can do — and getting firsthand flashbacks to their own pasts.

The Sight got a lot more interesting when the ghosts start talking to Michael and explaining the various rules of their situation and how they want his help. They remind me a lot of the more modern Ghosts sitcom in how they wear the outfits they had when they died and retain their personalities. Michael even gets a ghost mentor and a ghost love interest and a ghost lawyer. I wish I had a ghost lawyer. That sounds useful.

The plot device ghost is a little girl named Alice, and if that’s not weird when you think of Anderson’s next project, Resident Evil, and its own creepy Alice in Wonderland “Red Queen,” I don’t know what is. Oh wait, it’s the fact that the same actress plays both characters. Whaaaaat.

I think we have to be up front and honest with the fact that The Sight is a slow-paced supernatural mystery that travels a path very well-trod. If you’re OK with that, it’s really not a half-bad story. Anderson’s a lot more restrained when he’s not doing action, trading in guns here for haunting atmosphere and foreboding, not to mention some actual comedy and nice character work.

I should note that this being a failed pilot, there are questions planted here that are never answered, including a cryptic Jason Isaacs cameo at the end and an apocalyptic vision of New York City.

The Sight isn’t particularly scary or clever, but I’ll give it this: It is interesting with an arresting visual style and a nice blend of the supernatural and serial killer themes that were dominant at the turn of the century.

*Plus, I totally love 2009’s Pandorum, which Anderson produced.

**No, we never find out what’s in this room. Alas.

Intermission!

• A flashback filmed in slow-mo with children’s music playing over it? That’s like six tropes in a condensed package
• WAVY-VISION
• That is a very imposing door of mystery
• Lewis has a teeny tiny laptop
• “Video Email” was super hot in 2000
• Dead people love to show up for a spectacle
• All of the lights going out and then back on is creepy
• The whole police station shouting “IT’S THE RIPPER! THEY FOUND ANOTHER BODY!” seems a little unprofessional
• Dead lawyers like you to come to their burned-out offices. It’s standard procedure.
• Ghosts can make phone calls
• Alice in Wonderland on the stained glass window
• “Curioser”
• The letter voiceover that transitions into the ghost reading it out loud was clever
• “This world is not quite what you think it is.”
• The ghosts riding on top of the elevator was a cool shot
• All of the WWII subway ghosts
• “Peeker.”
• Cell phones work great in London sewers until the film says that they can’t because of the plot
• Jason Isaacs cameo
• The closing shot of the semi-destroyed Twin Towers was really odd, considering the year of this release