Hangman's Curse

Mild high school horror flick based on Frank Peretti’s supernatural book for youths

I originally saw this 2003 movie on DVD a couple of years after its release and, preparing to re-watch, I couldn’t remember anything about it, except the wacky professor, played by the author of the book, Frank Peretti, who comes across as a shorter Dr. Emmett Brown from “Back to the Future.” I saw an interview with him and he really IS as eccentrically animated as he appears in the film.

The plot revolves around a Spokane, Washington, high school, which is supposedly haunted by the ghost of a kid who committed suicide ten years earlier. Several jocks have freaked out after seeing the apparition and subsequently went into a coma. The school enlists the services of the Veritas Project, a team of investigators who work undercover to unravel paranormal phenomena. They’re like the family version of Mulder & Scully from The X-Files. David Keith plays the father, Mel Harris the mother and the teen twins are played by Leighton Meester and Douglas Smith. The dad pretends to be a janitor at the school while the kids act as new students.

To enjoy this movie you have to accept the highly unlikely premise of a family team of investigators and the fact that this is a tame horror movie from an author who’s writes Christian supernatural fiction with this movie being geared toward youths (tweens, teens & pre-teens). You also have to accept that, while the movie had a limited theatrical release, it had the budget of a TV movie ($2 million) and it shows.

With that in mind, there are several things to appreciate about “Hangman’s Curse”: The cast is likable, formidably headed by Keith; for once in a high school flick we get students who actually LOOK like they’re in high school, rather than mid-20s; I like the forbidden wing of the school and its subterranean burrows (reminiscent of the boiler room sequences in the Nightmare on Elm Street flicks); there are loads of creepy arachnids;...