Yoda watches Night of the Living Dead

GHOST CHASE (1987)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

There is nothing worse than seeing an old 1980's flick with precisely all the elements of bad 1980's flicks. Bad hair days, bad music synthesizer sounds (there were some good ones back then, like the Axel Foley and  Fletch scores), an old-hat plot that Sherlock Holmes and the Hardy Boys would've figured out in ten minutes, a Yoda-like creature with a British accent, a clumsy German spy and excessively hammy acting. I am talking about a forgotten curio from 1987 called "Ghost Chase." 

This is an early effort by Roland Emmerich who went on to do so-so movies and truly horrendous blockbuster remakes - "Godzilla" anyone? Jason Lively plays an actor of extremely low-budget slasher films who discovers he is entitled to an inheritance. Only problem is that the inheritance is actually a grandfather clock but something odd happens - the clock is inhabited by the ghost of a former butler who has firsthand knowledge of valuable cash bonds that are kept in the walled-in section of a basement in an old mansion. It also turns out that a greedy movie executive (Paul Gleason) is very interested in the location of those cash bonds.

The ghost of the butler looks like Yoda, and manages to manifest itself in a puppet that looks just like him. This is odd because neither looks remotely human, hence the Yoda reference. Jason Lively tries his damnedest to make his character appealing, as does the bright shining star of Jill Whitlow as the actress/waitress. "Night of the Creeps" fans will delight in seeing these two again, but it ain't worth the trouble (just watch "Night of the Creeps" again). Neither is the film director, puppet maker and horror movie buff named Fred (Tim McDaniel) - an insufferably whining kid who makes film in-jokes every few minutes in the midst of jeopardy. Speaking of in-jokes, why do movies that show clips from other movies always show them out of order? When Master Yoda watches "Night of the Living Dead" through a projector, you'll see what I mean.

Unless you are the most devoted Jill Whitlow fan on earth, any VHS and DVD copies of "Ghost Chase" belong deep, deep underground.