As I get back into the swing of things as far as “publishing” articles on my blog site one of my goto’s has always been movie reviews. I know right. Everyone does movies and there’s definitely no shortage of YouTubers, Bloggers, 2/4Channers, and independent fly by night blog sites doing this exact same thing. At first I was kind of down on myself that I couldn’t come up with something more original than “movie reviews” but as someone who aspires to write, I find it to be the perfect vehicle to drum up some thoughts for content. Movies are short and sweet all by themselves and I think it’s pretty much par for the course for us humans to reflect on something we’ve just seen or better put, experienced. So putting those two things together it’s probably the most natural way for someone like me who doesn’t ‘really do “this” to start doing “this”.

There was a 2 month break of no “content” on my blog right after Thanksgiving and part of that was due to holiday travel to visit family in the San Francisco Bay Area, and part of it was “what am I doing this for?”. I suppose I hit a low point as far as writing and blogging and started thinking that it was all just a waste of time with little to no interest for anyone but myself. But this simply isn’t true. I’ve discovered a community of bloggers just like me who probably “blog” for the same reasons as I do and I don’t think any of us really consider this to be some take off point to something grander. But I do think it’s maybe more than “something to do”. I bet others like myself feel satisfied doing this, enjoy the distraction “it” provides, putting our minds somewhere else for a moment for our own break away from what is probably the droll humdrum of days in and days outs. This is the “practice” I guess.

So, with two paragraphs written putting myself in the spotlight I think maybe now it’s time to talk about the movie this article was titled for.

Chateau is another one of those “vidlife” offerings which seem to be running rampant over the last couple of years. We’re introduced to James via her, yes, her, recording herself with her camera phone in the process of “creating” content. She talks about this and that and what we realize is nothing. She’s an aspiring influencer and American in Paris who discovered a male companion via some app who coincidentally is living in Paris. In the course of a phone call shortly after this, we find out he’s gay, and her motivation for him is so she’s not “homeless” on her trip to Paris. We do find out though they both have great chemistry and work well off each other, for the movie.

The phone call mentioned above interrupts her “content creation” and it’s difficult at first to tell if the person is a despised friend or colleague. Turn out it’s her sister and after a pained exchange of unpleasantries it’s learned that mother has recently died. I wonder if that will come up again.

The scene now cuts to Dash, our gay app friend, who’s quite good looking, coming from a non gay hetero sexual male writing obsequious blogs on some unread blog site, and James sitting on the couch discussing the pleasantries of internet stardom when the unpleasant notion of rent comes up. James announces she’s just received a message from one of her “apps” about a cleaning gig she’s just received and in the very near future, the rent will be paid. If nothing else, I do appreciate the reality stroke brushed in here. She shows her phone to Dash with a picture of the house she will be cleaning. Dash looks at the house and exclaims, “Don’t you know what house that is? That’s the murder house.” Or something to that effect. Instead of inquiring more about the house her internet influenced and bedazzled brain realizes she can now double her cleaning gig by also creating a documentary on the “Murder House” and doing a ghost hunt. I know right, blasé.

At first I thought I was going to get bored with such simplistic and quite frankly formulaic setup for a movie/ghost story but as it went on, I did get into it and by end, it turned out to be a rather engaging ghost story. There’s a couple fakeouts, some less than engaging ghosts, and a phone in the attic I’ll let you guess who might eventually reach out to James with it’s creepy and eventually incessant ringing. All in all I did enjoy this take on a ghost story. At first I didn’t particularly like any of the unknown actors populating Chateau but by the end I was happy I watched it. James is a decent actor (Cathy Marks) and does carry the movie well.

I would consider Chateau a softcore ghost story/horror which might appeal to any audience. There’s no nudity, overused cuss words, or other garishness and it’s not really needed. Which means Chateau stands on its own merits and I think that might be one of the reasons I enjoyed it. So if you’re bored and looking to see an entertaining and original ghost story on Amazon Prime, Chateau wouldn’t be a bad choice.