Ghosts is a musical movie, 38 mins long,
with Michael Jackson playing both the main characters. The first of
those characters is a Maestro who lives alone in a haunted looking
castle on a hill. Its known he has been entertaining the local town
children with scary magic tricks which they have found to be pure
fun.
Michael Jackson also plays the role of
the second main character, the Town Mayor, a white ageing, overweight
man. The make up effects are amazing its not easy to tell this isn't
a real human actor let alone guess this role is being played by Michael
Jackson. The Mayor leads some of the towns folk up to the castle along
with some of the kids on a mission to run the Maestro out of town.
They believe he is not just entertaining the children but scaring
them. They, or at least the Town Mayor perceive the Maestro as a "Freak"
and "Weirdo". The children say the Maestro is harmless and
want him to be left alone.
When the Mayor backed up by the towns
people finds the Maestro and tells him "Are you going to leave,
or am I going to have to make you?" The Maestro is unfazed by
this and questions "You're trying to scare me, aren't you?...I
guess I have no choice, I have to try and scare you." This is
when the movies special effects really begin. As you can see from
the movie screenshots Michael totally distorts his face and eventually
pulls his whole face off just leaving his skull.
The Maestro then reveals he is not alone
in the castle and many of his ghostly friends start appearing from
balls of light thrown by the Maestro. Michael performs a dance to
the song "2 Bad". This is also followed by some more routines,
one with Michael's skeleton dancing and even moonwalking. The Maestro
also enters into the body of the Mayor and makes the Mayor dance to
the music. The Mayor ends up disappearing through a window and the
towns people appear to accept the Maestro.
Overal the movie really does make the
most of some of the latest special effects of the time. The dance
routines, although somewhat reminnicent of Thriller, with Michael
leading ghosts from past era instead of zombies are amazing and the
music is Michael Jackson at his best, maybe not as regards hit records,
but ideal for the movie. This ia must see movie for any fan of Michael
Jackson.
The movie was released
at the Cannes Film Festival in 1996 and released on VHS video in 1997.
Songs featured in the film were "2 Bad" which was from Michael
Jackson's HIStory album and Ghosts and Is It Scary which were both
taken from Blood On The Dance Floor, which was a History in the Mix
album with some new tacks.
