Warning! some people may find the images on
this page disturbing.
When a family inherits a magnificent old mansion from a distant uncle, it was supposed to be a dream come true...
but the line between reality and nightmare shatters in the new horror blockbuster THIR13EN GHOSTS. As the thrilled family explores their
new home, a triumph of glass and steel, unsettling things begin to happen -before the original inhabitants of the mansion begin to appear. Too late, the humans realise that this is no ordinary estate, but rather a ghost prison that houses no less than 13 revenge-crazed spectres...each feeding the `machine` itself to open the very door to hell.With a great cast including Shannon Elizabeth, Matthew Lillard, Award winner F. Murray Abraham and brought to you by Joel Silver, the genius behind THE MATRIX and ROMEO MUST DIE, this relentless shock ride will take you to new depths of horror where one fright after the other proves there`s certainly no filler in this chillier!
The ghosts
The twelve ghosts which make up the Black Zodiac all have their own unique back story, and while these were not described in the film, the production and make-up teams used them as guidelines. All the ghosts were contained in glass prisons, and were caught with the aid of the psychic Rafkin, who could locate them, and on the behalf of Cyrus.
1. The First Born Son-Capricorn (played by Mikhael Speidel)
The First Born Son is the ghost of a little boy called Billy Michaels, who was obsessed with cowboy films. Not heeding his parents' advice, he played Cowboys and Indians with a real bow and arrow, and the arrow went straight through his forehead.
2. The Torso-Aquarius (played by Daniel Wesley)
The Torso is the ghost of a gambler called Jimmy Gambino. Losing everything in a poker game, he tried to welch on his bet and escape. The mob, which he owed money to, caught up with Gambino and cut him into several pieces, wrapping them in cellophane and dumping the corpse.
3. The Bound Woman-Pisces (played by Laura Mennel)
The Bound Woman was a cheerleader, who, after cheating on her boyfriend preceding a high school prom, was strangled by him, and was later found buried on the football field.
4. The Withered Lover-Aries (played by Kathryn Anderson)
The Withered Lover is Jean Kriticos, the wife of Arthur. She died in the freak house fire while trying to rescue her children.
5. The Torn Prince-Taurus (played by Craig Olejnik)
The Torn Prince is the ghost of Royce Clayton, who was a baseball star. He challenged a greaser to a drag race and was killed in the ensuing crash.
6. The Angry Princess-Gemini (played by Shawna Loyer)
The Angry Princess is Dana Newman, who constantly tried achieving perfection with her looks, despite being beautiful. She gave up eventually after trying to perform cosmetic surgery on herself. She accidentally blinded herself and eventually slit her wrists. She was found with dozens of self-inflicted gashes on her. The movie suggests that she killed herself for another reason (In the scene when she appears in the bathroom, you see the phrase "I'm sorry" on the floor in blood; subtitles also reveal that the blurred, hissing speech that announces her arrival is her whispering "I'm sorry"). "I'm sorry" might also be an expression of regret over having committed suicide in the first place, rather than an apology for something else.
7. The Pilgrimess-Cancer (played by Xantha Radley)
The Pilgrimess is the ghost of Isabella Smith, an English woman who travelled across the Atlantic and settled in New England. She was a separatist, and this isolated her from the other townsfolk. She was found guilty of witchcraft, and put to death in the stocks (pillory).
8. & 9. The Great Child and The Dire Mother-Leo&Virgo (played by C. Ernst Harth and Laurie Soper)
The Dire Mother is the ghost of Margaret Shelburne, who was an attraction in a carnival due to her being only three feet tall. She was raped by the "tall man" and bore a child, Harold who weighed over 300 pounds (136 kg).
Harold was spoiled by his mother, who raised him to be her protector and to exact revenge on the other members of the carnival who ridiculed her. Harold, in rage, took an axe and killed a group of people harassing his mother. Later, both he and his mother were killed by a frenzied mob.
10. The Hammer-Libra (played by Herbert Duncanson)
The Hammer is the ghost of a blacksmith, George Markley, who lived in a small town in the 1890s. He was driven out of town after wrongfully being accused of stealing. Enraged, he tracked down the people responsible and hammered them to death. The other townsfolk captured him, and they drove large nails into his body and cut off his hands.
11. The Jackal-Scorpio (played by Shane Wyler)
The Jackal is Ryan Kuhn, a psychotic mental patient with a penchant for attacking women. He was permanently in a straitjacket, and had a metal cage locked around his head. After years of this, he had grown deformed, and reviled human contact. He was the only victim of a fire that broke out in the asylum; he apparently ran into the flames rather than let anyone touch him.
12. The Juggernaut-Sagitarius (played by John DeSantis)
The Juggernaut was a serial killer named Breaker Mahoney. Standing at seven feet tall, he towed broken-down motorists to his junkyard where he murdered them, tearing them apart with his bare hands. Being impossible to take on in close combat, his pursuers opted for the safer method, and brought him down in a hail of bullets.
