'GHOSTS' TEDIOUS, BUT WITH GREAT SETS.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

This remake of the cheesy William Castle shocker ``Thirteen Ghosts'' boasts a better-than-average cast that includes Tony Shalhoub, F. Murray Abraham, Matthew Lillard, Shannon Elizabeth and the rap artist Rah Digga.

But the star of the show is a baroque, etched-glass and retro-mechanical haunted house set designed by Sean Hargreaves. As integral to the story as it is ingenious, the sets are so cool to look at that you can almost forgive director Steve Beck for all of the redundant, time-marking shots of empty corridors, whirring/whirling thingamajigs and sliding, translucent walls with which he pads out the final cut.

Almost. ``Thirteen Ghosts'' had the makings of a first-rate horror film as well as a visual tour-de-force. But even though the plot here unfolds a little more clearly than the average contemporary fright mess, it's still full of logic holes, cheap narrative shortcuts and mood-wrecking attempts at ethnic humor.

But it's also generally scary and the ghosts are really icky, so more is done right here than not. And this stab at it is definitely an improvement over producers Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis' first Castle remake, ``House on Haunted Hill.''

We're introduced to Abraham's Cyrus Kriticos as a clearly maniacal, evil guy, using high-tech equipment and freaked-out psychic Rafkin (a genuinely witty Lillard) to capture a vicious, killer ghost. This effort, set in a night-shrouded auto graveyard, does not go well, and the next thing we know Cyrus' fantastic, see-through museum of a mansion has been inherited by his unsuspecting nephew Arthur (Shalhoub).

Arthur and his two kids, perky Kathy (Elizabeth) and enthusiastically morbid little Bobby (Alec Roberts), have fallen on hard times since a fire killed their beloved wife and mom and destroyed all their worldly possessions. But even though depressed Arthur is financially destitute, he can somehow afford a live-in nanny, Digga's Maggie, whom we eventually learn is in the movie to provide comic commentary and last-minute heroics for the urban demographic.

Anyway, soon after the Kriticosesenter the impressive, conveniently isolated show palace, switches get thrown and the place starts turning into what it really is: a giant, infernal machine built to harness wicked supernatural forces. The energy for this effort is provided by the 12 angry, unhappy spirits Cyrus had captured and imprisoned in the basement - and who are now escaping to menace the building's trapped humans, which beside family and sitter include the aforementioned Rafkin and Kalina (Embeth Davidtz), a kind of Lara Croft-ish, Greenpeace-for-ghosts adventuress/activist.

And since the movie and its mechanism requires a 13th ghost, at least one fresh kill is on the agenda.

Back in the 1950s and '60s, Castle was notorious for the gimmicks he employed to sucker people into his productions. The original ``13 Ghosts'' gimmick involved a viewing card with blue and red cellophane panels; when the spirits were about to appear, on-screen signals informed viewers that they could either look through the red filter if they wanted to see the awful apparitions or the blue one if they were afraid to.

Beck, a visual-effects art director making his directing debut, puts this process into the film by supplying the characters with goggles that enable them to make out the threatening monsters ... though not enough of them so everyone will know when and where to run. It's another clever visual idea of many in the new film, overused to the point where it gets rather tiresome.

``THIRTEEN GHOSTS''

(Rated R: violence, nudity, language, children in jeopardy, drug use)

The stars: Tony Shalhoub, Matthew Lillard, Shannon Elizabeth, Embeth Davidtz, Rah Digga, F. Murray Abraham, Alec Roberts.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Steve Beck. Written by Neal Marshall Stevens, Richard D'Ovidio and Robb White, based on the William Castle movie. Produced by Gilbert Adler, Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis. Released by Warner Bros.

Running time: One hour, 25 minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Two and one half

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Matthew Lillard discovers he's not alone in the haunted house in ``Thirteen Ghosts.''