Based on the short story by Tim Lebbon, the film stars workaholic/crazy man Nic Cage as a professor named Mike that loses his son in a crowd one Halloween night and spends the following year passionately searching for him. Despite no leads from the police and everyone else attempting to move on, Mike never gives up hope. As the anniversary of the boy's disappearance comes closer, the visions of his son become more frequent, as if trying to relay a message from beyond the grave. Accompanied by his now ex-wife, the two follow clues in an attempt to find out what really happened to their boy and where he may be.

There's really not a whole lot that can be said about Pay the Ghost--it's a movie that starts off interesting enough story-wise, even offering a couple somewhat creepy scenes and ghostly jump scares, but it's all pretty familiar territory for the avid genre fan, especially towards the end. In fact, there's nothing new here at all and that's the movie's biggest fault. It's lack of creativity is unfortunate because it actually has an interesting story buried within all the clichés and monotony--a story that details forms of witchcraft and revenge every Halloween night.

As far as acting goes Nic Cage tries his hardest to not seem crazy, while Sarah Wayne Callies plays the standard concerned mother (though we know how careless you really are Lori Grimes!). The production values are decent, despite it's clearly low budget and the directing is fairly competent, but that's about it. The film seemingly had some potential to be an above average effort early on, but fell into all the standard tropes, even to the point of regurgitating the same old climax that we've seen many times in recent years, just done better (Insidious).

Pay the Ghost offered an interesting story and couple decent scares early on before delivering all the inevitable tropes horror fans have come to expect. It's unoriginality is the film's biggest flaw, ultimately leading it to be nothing more than your typical ghostly tale. It may be worth a look on a boring night, but don't expect anything new.