Wonderful character development!

Very well executed

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

There was a time, long long ago, when Hollywood produced sincerely great and lovely movies. Where have they gone, the authors of far ago? A movie with nice language and prose, with lovely characters and a rock-solid story rarely equated by now-a-day's cinema.

Peter Plunkett (Peter O'Toole) is the drunk owner of a rundown Irish castle turned hotel. He needs to come up with the money in three weeks or else he will be foreclosed and the castle moved to Malibu. With his annoying mother's stories of ghosts, he gets his ragtag group of workers to haunt the castle for the arriving Yank tourists. Among the Americans are Jack (Steve Guttenberg) and wife Sharon Crawford (Beverly D'Angelo), Brother Tony (Peter Gallagher) before he takes his vows, Miranda (Jennifer Tilly) who has swore off men, Malcolm (Martin Ferrero) and his loud annoying family. The haunting efforts are amateurish but then the real ghosts show up. Sharon's father holds the mortgage and she's eager to disprove the ghosts. On the other hand, Jack falls for the beautiful ghost Mary (Daryl Hannah). Mary was killed by her husband Martin Brogan (Liam Neeson) and they are both forced to relive the moment. A drunken Jack breaks the moment.This could have been a fun little British romp about a bunch of local misfits trying to make a haunted castle. It has the potential to do that but the more Hollywood it gets, the less fun it becomes. The movie concentrates too much on the Americans. The more wacky the movie tries to be, the less funny it actually is. It's a funhouse without the fun. This is written and directed by Neil Jordan. It's possibly the low point of his career. Broad comedy isn't his thing.

This is without a doubt one of my all time favorite movies!! I love every eccentric cheap second of it and couldn't ask for anything more, I've actually memorized it!! The story begins with Peter Plunkett (Peter O'Toole) about to have his home/castle/hotel taken away by a family rival named Jim Brogen who wants to open it as a theme park called "Irish World" in Malibu, CA. Fearing the loss of his home and place of employment he gathers his fellow workers and drunken mom (Liz Smith who I would love to have drink with) to conspire a way to get tourists to come stay at his hotel by masking it as a "haunted castle" which of course it's not although mum says otherwise. Of the many colorful guests that are staying there is Jack Crawford (Steve Gutenberg) and his wife Sharon (Beverly D'Angelo) who are having extreme issues with their marriage and are coming to Castle Plunkett in an attempt at a second honeymoon which Sharon wants no part of. Among the other guests are a parapsychologist (an expert in ghosts) and his family set to disprove the haunting, a not yet affirmed priest (peter Gallagher) and a sex crazed chick (Jennifer Tilly). Shortly after arriving the guests discover Plunkett's gimmick and prepare to leave but not before they learn that Sharon was sent by her father Jim Brogen to spy on Plunkett thus using her and Jack's trip as an excuse.Jack then gets drunk and stumbles onto a ghostly murder taking place and somehow manages to stop it. Soon after he falls for the murdered specter named Mary Plunkett (Daryl Hannah) and her killer husband Martin Brogen(Liam Neeson)who stabbed her on their wedding night wrongly believing that she loved someone else.Later weird things start happening to the guests and the very real ghosts of the castle begin to make their presences known especially Martin who won't give up on trying to seduce Sharon. (funniest parts of the movie if you ask me).On Halloween night things come to ahead and Jack and Mary get it on which afterwords puts him up the the ultimate test of love. Sharon unknowingly gives up her life for Mary and takes her place to be with Martin.By the end everyone is happily ever after. Honestly Liam Neeson was my favorite character of the whole thing and Peter O'Toole was brilliant. I believe this is somewhat based off a much older movie but for the life of me i can't remember the title any who, watch it on a rainy day and i promise you won't regret it.

This movie has a rather standard plot of some old 1970's horror films that I have seen over the years, that of the old house, old building, in this case the old castle where some sort of tragic event took place and the participants of this event are doomed to keep repeating it in the afterlife. And as is the case with those horror movies the event that took place in this movie is the murder of a woman by her jealous husband. This movie is not a horror movie by an stretch of the imagination, it is a comedy. I think some people are visiting the castle and staying there when all the ghost stuff starts happening. It has its moments when it is rather funny as Peter O'Toole is the best member of the cast as far as being funny, then the movie gets right down into being a sort of romance movie. Then the movie ends in a rather unrealistic way, leaving you to think what is up with that. There is also a sex scene that gets rather intense for a PG-13 rated movie so you may want to think twice about letting the kids see this one. I read this movie is not really what the director wanted and it shows as the movie at times plays out in a disjointed fashion. Still, there are laughs to be had and the plot is somewhat good if nothing we have not seen before.