# Bolero/Ghosts Can't Do It - Blu-ray Review



## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

[img]http://www.hometheatershack.com/gallery/file.php?n=62601[/img] 
*Title: Bolero/Ghosts Can't Do It* 

*Movie:* :1.5stars:
*Video:* :3.5stars:
*Audio:* :3.5stars: 
*Extras:* :halfstar: 

*HTS Overall Score:*56




*WARNING: THE SCORES ABOVE ARE A COMBINED SCORE FROM BOTH FILMS, THE INDIVIDUAL SCORES ARE CONTAINED BELOW IN THE INDIVIDUAL SECTIONS OF THE REVIEW*

[img]http://www.hometheatershack.com/gallery/file.php?n=62609[/img]*Summary*
Bo Derek is really only known for ONE movie. That movie being the movie “10”, where her stunning beach scene is pretty much immortalized in cinematic history as being the perfect 10 woman. Stunningly gorgeous with piercing eyes, Bo has captivated audiences with her beauty over the years even though she really doesn’t have a LOT of film acting under belt. This little double feature of Bo’s happen to both happen during the start of her career as well as being written and directed by her husband John (which does no favors for her). “Ghosts Can’t Do it” is a mind bendingly awful film with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, while “Bolero” is famed with being one of the WORST movies in existence by most of the cinema world. The only redeeming quality for Bolero is the fact that it’s SOOOOOOOOOOOOO bad that it’s unintentionally one of the most hilarious things I’ve ever seen. 

*Bolero* :1.5stars:
“Bolero” really is one of the worst movies I think that I have ever watched in terms of writing, acting and production values. The film EARNS the title of one of the worst films in existence for a VERY good reason. Released under the Cannon film banner, it was one of those schlocky films that owners Golan and Globus churned out at the rate of 15 films a year. If you watched the “Electric Boogaloo” documentary that I reviewed a few months back they go into detail about the creation of “Bolero” and how they wanted to reimagine “Madame Bovary” and turn it into the most erotic movie ever. However what they ended up making is a hilarious campy mess that just SCREAMS awful. Even the whole “erotic” twist is nothing that we haven’t seen in an R rated film before, but Director John Derek gleefully hams up the whole picture with incredibly bad writing and horrific editing. I mean, there IS the famous belly dance scene that Bo performs to rival Salma Hayek’s dance in “From Dusk Till Dawn”, but that alone can’t redeem a film that was this delusional about its own limitations. 

Bo Derek was supposedly livid about the amount of time she was showing her skin during the film, but was trapped by Golan and Globus after they wheedled her into the contract. However, this makes one scratch their head with wonder, because didn’t her own husband KNOW what was in the film since he was the one who both directed and WROTE the movie? Ah well, logic goes out the window when you’re dealing with Cannon films. Bo Derek plays Lida MacGuillivery, a nubile 18 year old graduate (who looks about 30-35) who’s just come into her own and decides that she and her best friend need to lose their virginity to the perfect man. This adventure takes her around the world where she decides if she wants a Sheik, or maybe she really wants a Spanish bull fighter. Oh wait, there’s even more. Oh boy. My head hurts just WRITING about this unpolished turd.

The film is awash with Bo Derek’s gorgeous smile and tanned midsection as she fills the movie with slow motion horse riding and costume changes that come at you a mile a minute. Sadly, these are the only saving graces of the movie as the rest of the time I was sitting there with head in my hands wondering just WHAT Bo had gotten herself into. I have to say that while the movie is horrible beyond belief, it is so awful, so horrible, so INCREDIBLY bad that I was howling with laughter most of the movie. Pulpy dialogue like Bo coming into the Sheik’s room dressed as a ghost because “I thought you should be scared to death as I am”.

Bo was never a great actress, but somehow you feel sorry for her, as her limited talents are absolutely wasted due to the abysmal script. How they got famed actor George Kennedy to play her chauffeur, Cotton, is beyond me. All I have to say is “wow, so THIS is the movie that forced MGM to dump cannon films and just throw their hands up in disgust”. 

[img]http://www.hometheatershack.com/gallery/file.php?n=62617[/img]*Ghosts Can't Do It* :1star: 
Following up with one of the worst films in history comes ANOTHER completely horrible film to match the pair with. Again, written and directed by her husband John, Bo is forced to chew her way through incredibly bad lines of dialogue, over acting beyond belief and a script that would make Ewe Boll look like a talented writer/director after this little gem. Set in the late 80s, Bo Derek is playing Katie Scott, a wealthy widower who has just had her much older husband, Scott (Anthony Quinn), blow his own brains out after he finds out that his heart condition leaves him with very few days left. In agony and not knowing what she can do about her situation, Scott appears to her as a ghostly figure and soothes her wounds. 

Telling her to go visit the tropics where they had been planning to go for the last several months, Ghost Scott nudges his grieving widow along in an effort for her to regain her happiness. While there, she meets a good looking gentleman by the name of Fausto Garibaldi (Leo Damian), who falls head over heels for the older woman. Overcome with jealousy, Scott vows to come back and possess a new body, and decides that Garibaldi will be his host. Together with Katie, he plans to have his wife murder the young man so that his spirit can possess the body and they can live happily ever after once again. As is pretty common with movies, things don’t go as planned and Katie can’t go along with the plan, which leaves one last desperate attempt to have Scott regain his presence in the physical plane once more (even if it supposedly could them to hell).
“Ghosts Can’t Do It” is one of the worst films that I have ever seen. While “Bolero” was so bad that it was unintentionally funny, “Ghosts Can’t Do It” is just bad, awful and with no redemptive features whatsoever. The dialog is beyond stilted and awkward, with Katie calling her husband “oh great one” and director John Derek seeming to set up some vast conspiracy in his business life, only to have those same plot lines fade out of existence when he realizes he needs to wrap the movie up. Anthony Quinn is an incredible character actor, and much like George Kennedy, I have to wonder just much money was offered, or what pressure was used to influence him to star in this pile of drek. 

Bo Derek does what she does best, smiling those pearly whites and showing off some midriff for the teenage boys while the script turns itself into pretzel like knots trying to make sense of SOMETHING. The scene where the board members send a hitman to either off Katie or drug her is so badly acted and written that I know a 12 year old was doing the writing. John Derek has done his wife absolutely NO favors by thrusting his presence upon her in these two films, and “Ghosts Can’t Do It” manages to ranks as probably the worst thing that she’s ever starred in, even above “Bolero”.




*Rating:* 

Rated R by the MPAA / Rated R by the MPAA


*Video* :3.5stars:

[img]http://www.hometheatershack.com/gallery/file.php?n=62625[/img]
*Bolero* :3stars:
“Bolero” is more than a bit rough looking. Scratches and print damage abounds on the rather soft image and the clarity is not the greatest. There definitely has been little to no restoration work done on the 80’s film and the resulting image is about what you would expect for a slightly ignored and dilapidated film stuck in a vault for decades. The colors are a bit orangey, with a strong red/orange push that gives everyone a decidedly ruddy complexion. Fine detail is moderate with decent enough replication of the source material, but the inclusion of black crush and some nasty macroblocking create a smudgy looking image that is just mediocre at best. 


*Ghosts Can't Do It* :4stars:
“Ghosts Can’t Do It” fares a LOT better in the picture department, as it looks to be in much better shape than “Bolero” has been left in. the picture can be reasonably soft at times, and definitely a bit gauzy in places, but the overall image is rather sharp and full of good details. The outdoor Montana area shots look incredibly beautiful with wonderfully white snow and good looking skin tones. Sometimes the whites bloom a little bit, but it isn’t too distracting, and the colors are a lot brighter and cleaner than I would have though considering how badly the prior film looked like. Blacks are solid and show no signs of too much crush, and the artifacting is kept to a bare minimum, leaving us with a rather pleasing looking image to enjoy



*Audio* :3.5stars:
[img]http://www.hometheatershack.com/gallery/file.php?n=62633[/img]
*Bolero* :3.5stars:
The 2.0 DTS-HD MA track for “Bolero” is satisfactory, with decent vocals and a solid front soundstage for Bo Derek to traipse about on in slow motion horseback riding shots. It’s a fairly simple tracks that deals in a lot of dialog, and it doesn’t really engage in anything overly bombastic or frenetic to stretch its limits. There are some nice panning shots where we get to hear the horse hooves shift from one side of the screen to the other, but most of the time it’s a fairly simple, fairly unimaginative track that just does what’s asked of it. 


*Ghosts Can't Do It* :3.5stars:
Saddled with a 2.0 track in DTS-HD MA as well, “Ghosts Can’t Do It” is a solid stereo track that replicates what is asked of it without much ado about anything. The fault of the track comes from the wildly inconsistent dialog recording levels. One moment they are completely in tune with the rest of the movie, and the next moment the rest of the audio just drowns out the vocals as if they fade into the background. The phenomenon is a bit awkward as you constantly are turning down the volume just so the effects don’t blast you out of your chair so you can hear what is being said. There’s some mild LFE baked into the front two speakers, but nothing that will knock your socks completely off. 





*Extras:* :halfstar:
[img]http://www.hometheatershack.com/gallery/file.php?n=62641[/img]*Bolero*
• Theatrical Trailer
*Ghosts Can't Do It*
• Theatrical Trailer










*Overall:* :3stars:

“Bolero” and “Ghosts Can’t Do It” are more of a warning to the rest of Hollywood rather than good movies. A warning that just goes to prove just how bad a movie truly can be, and that just because you are given a script and a budget doesn’t mean you’re capable of making a good movie. Both films are so mind bendingly bad that I have no honest comprehension of how these movies made it to production. Well, that’s not completely true if you’ve seen the “Electric Boogaloo” documentary and understand how the two Israeli film producers pumped out their movies. Notwithstanding, both movies are horrible beyond belief, and even “Bolero’s” status as one of the worst films ever made can give this set any validity except for those with a penchant for the extremely esoteric films out there. Simply put, run away in terror from this set. 


*Additional Information:*

Starring: Bo Derek, Anthony Quinn, George Kennedy
Directed by: John Derek : John Derek
Written by: John Derek : John Derek
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 AVC / 1.85:1 AVC
Audio: English DTS-HD MA Mono/Stereo
Studio: SHOUT Factory
Rated: R
Runtime: 105 minutes : 90 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: January 12th, 2016


*Buy Bolero/Ghosts Can't Do It Blu-ray on Amazon*

*Recommendation: Run in Terror!​*










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