Characters / Thir13en Ghosts

Humans

Arthur Kriticos

Arthur Kriticos

Played by: Tony Shalhoub

• Nice Guy: He's described as a selfless man who would never hurt a fly.
• Papa Wolf: Willing to brave the dangers of the house to save his children.
• Straight Man: Arthur refuses to believe in any of the ghosts until he's given a pair of the Spectral Viewers and sees the Jackal for himself.

Cyrus Kriticos

Cyrus Kriticos

Played by: F. Murray Abraham

• Asshole Victim: Due to the heinous acts he's committed, including using his own nephew's wife in a profane ritual, his gruesome death is not entirely undeserved.
• Batman Gambit: His entire plan hinges on Arthur being willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of his children and become the thirteenth ghost.
• Big Bad: He is the one behind the operation of capturing the titular 13 ghosts and using them on Basileus's mechanism. He also captured his niece-in-law as one of the ghosts and intends to sacrifice his own nephew as the 13th one.
• Evil Uncle: He's Arthur's rich uncle whose house the latter inherited. However, the entire house is a storeroom for twelve dangerous ghosts, and was designed that way by Cyrus. He is also after the ghosts to power up an arcane mechanism.
• Fatal Flaw: His belief in his own greatness and inability to recognize the "little" people around him. He never even thinks about Maggie's presence in his house and is caught completely off guard when her interruption of the ritual results in his own death.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The ghosts he's collected in his house to control turn on him once the defenses fail and tear him to shreds.
• Posthumous Character: Is killed by the Juggernaut in the beginning. He's been faking his death to use Arthur in his plan.

Dennis Rafkin

Dennis Rafkin

Played by: Matthew Lillard

• Blessed with Suck: He's a medium that can detect ghosts and read people's minds through physical contact. However, he can't control his powers, and has Convulsive Seizures because of them.
  Dennis: I come within ten feet of anything dead, I go into seizures! I touch somebody, and a whole life full of shit just flashes in front of my eyes!
• Everyone Has Standards: While he did help Cyrus in capturing the ghosts strictly for the paycheck, once he finds out who Arthur is and realizes the connection between him and the fourth ghost, he feels awful and does what he can to help Arthur rescue his family.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Gives his life to save Arthur from the Hammer and the Juggernaut.
• Large Ham: A staple of Matthew Lillard's. Dennis chews the scenery more often than not.
• Redemption Equals Death: Despite being in on some of Cyrus' plan and being complicit in some of his crimes, Dennis decides to do one selfless act and sacrifices himself for Arthur's sake.
• Suddenly Shouting:
  Dennis: In case you haven't noticed, I'M A LITTLE BIT OF A FREAK!
• Touch Telepathy: Of a sort. Whenever Dennis touches a live person's skin, he sees flashes of their entire life.
• Unhappy Medium: He absolutely hates having his powers, as they wear on him both physically and mentally. The fact that Cyrus used him to entrap people's souls certainly doesn’t help matters.

Kalina Oretzia

Kalina Oretzia

Played by: Embeth Davidtz

• Big Damn Heroes: She first appears in the house to save Arthur and Kathy from the Jackal.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She's been working with Cyrus to make sure that Arthur goes through his sacrifice.
• Everyone Has Standards: Even though she's been complicit in helping Cyrus with his plans, she's horrified when he orders her to put Arthur's children in real danger so he will sacrifice himself for them and complete the ritual.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Cyrus leaves her to get crushed in a glass cage after she's convinced Arthur to go through the ritual.

Kathy Kriticos

Kathy Kriticos

Played by: Shannon Elizabeth

• Bratty Teenage Daughter: She's a bit of a brat, due to being depressed because of her mother's death and her deteriorating relationship with Arthur.
• Damsel in Distress: She gets kidnapped by the ghosts halfway through the movie.

Bobby Kriticos

Bobby Kriticos

Played by: Alec Roberts

• Creepy Child: He shows an unhealthy interest in true crime stories.

Maggie Bess

Maggie Bess

Played by: Rah Digga

• Spanner in the Works: She disrupts Cyrus's plan by messing with his incantation, causing the Broken Heart ritual to fail.

Ben Moss

Ben Moss

Played by: J.R. Bourne

• Half the Man He Used to Be: He's spooked by the Angry Princess into backing into a glass door and gets cut vertically in half from the side.
• Too Dumb to Live: Don't you think that briefcase with the money is standing on that pedal for a reason, Ben?

The Black Zodiac

The Ghosts In General

• 13 Is Unlucky
• Always Chaotic Evil: With the exception of a select few, the ghosts are primarily hellbent on death and destruction, and cannot be reasoned with or stopped through normal means.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Nearly all of them met their demise through horrible circumstances.
• Evil Counterpart: Each spirit represents a negative and exaggerated interpretation of the Traditional Zodiac signs.
• Freudian Excuse: Most of the ghosts were normal people before their violent deaths and a good number of them became violent after death Except for the Withered Lover.
• Ghostly Goals: Experiencing horrible deaths and having their spirits trapped inside glass containers has left them *very* angry and vengeful.
• Gratuitous Latin: When Kalina explains to Arthur the meaning behind the ghosts, she opens a book and shows him the pages with the descriptions of the ghosts, their titles written in Latin.
• Jacob Marley Apparel: Their attire consists of items related to their lives and/or deaths.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: A good majority of their titles.
• Power Levels: To a degree. The first four ghosts in the Zodiac are effectively harmless to the human inhabitants of the house (though undeniably eerie and frightening in appearance). The next few gradually escalate in danger, culminating with the final two being ghosts of psychopathic Serial Killers.
• Resurrected Murderer: While most of the ghosts were actually normal people who didn't become violent until after they came back as ghosts, the Jackal and the Juggernaut were both Ax-Crazy serial killers before their deaths. The Juggernaut in particular accumulated 40 additional kills before Cyrus and his team trapped him in the opening.
• Vengeful Ghost: They exist in a tortured realm, so violence is all they know.

The First Born Son

Billy Michaels

Played by: Mikhael Speidel

• Accidental Murder: His death. It tends to be the result when little kids play with real weapons.
• Boom, Headshot!: Billy died when a local boy shot him right between the eyes with a bow and arrow.
• Cowboys and Indians: Was fond of this when he was alive. Unfortunately, it also killed him.
• Creepy Child: He's one of the ghosts, and still has the arrow that killed him sticking out of his head.
• Spoiled Brat: In life, he was obsessed with his favorite game and reportedly flew into a rage if told to stop.

The Torso

Jimmy "The Gambler" Gambino

Played by: Daniel Wesley

• Dismembering the Body: How he died and thus how The Torso came to be.
• Fatal Flaw: Pride. Despite knowing the risks when betting with "self-made man" Larry Vitello, Jimmy wanted to preserve his own reputation above all else.
• The Gambling Addict: Cyrus notes that his childhood was spent in seedy gambling rings until opening a booking business of his own. He was known to never turn down a bet, and barely scraped by to cover his payoffs as a result.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: They don't call him "The Torso" for nothing.
• Gorn: His death. Chopped into pieces, wrapped in cellophane, and dumped into the bottom of the ocean.
• Make an Example of Them: Or rather, several small examples.

The Bound Woman

Susan LeGrow

Played by: Laura Mennell

• A Deadly Affair: Susan cheating on her boyfriend got her and her lover murdered by said boyfriend.
• Alpha Bitch: During her time in high school.
• If I Can't Have You…: She was murdered by her prom date after he caught her cheating on him with another boy.
• Intentional Heartbreaker: She went through boys like tissues, apparently for kicks.
• Neck Snap: How she died after her boyfriend strangled her. In her murderer's words, "The bitch broke my heart, so I broke her neck".
• Rich Bitch: Was the daughter of a wealthy family and had a habit of breaking boys' hearts.
• Spoiled Brat: Cyrus describes her as "born with a silver spoon in her mouth".

The Withered Lover

Jean Kriticos

Played by: Kathryn Anderson

• Friendly Ghost: All she does as a spirit trapped in the house is try to help her family.
• Token Good Teammate: As loving in death as she was in life. Its possible that its because she's a recent ghost and less tortured by the spectral realm. She also manages to pass on without much trouble once her family is safe.
• Two-Faced: The left side of her face is covered in burn scars.

The Torn Prince

Royce Clayton

Played by: Craig Olejnik

• Batter Up!: Carries around a baseball bat as his weapon of choice, and is quite violent with it.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: While he'd rankle at being called a 'nobody' in life, he was a fairly accomplished - though arrogant - high school athlete with a potentially bright future. As a ghost he's easily one of the nastier Zodiac spirits, in the same league as two murderous Serial Killers and an unjustly killed Black man who watched a racist mob lynch his family before they tortured him to death.
• Jerk Jock: A star slugger on his high school baseball team, he became one of the more aggressive ghosts trapped in the house.
• Murder Into Malevolence: While he was a relatively harmless teenaged athlete, after dying in a drag race, he became one of the more aggressive spirits haunting the house.
• Small Town Boredom: Royce's life in his small hometown was miserable, at least according to Cyrus.
• The '50s: His era judging by the car he died in.
• Two-Faced: The car accident that killed him gave him this appearance.
• Vehicular Sabotage: Some material implies that the greaser who challenged Royce to the drag race tampered with his brakes.

The Angry Princess

Dana Newman

Played by: Shawna Loyer

• Bath Suicide: How she met her fate in life.
  • Blood Bath: Her ghost takes one after being released from her container.
• Black Eyes of Evil
• Couldn't Find a Pen: Wrote her suicide note on the bathroom floor with her own blood.
• Despair Event Horizon: Her accidentally blinding herself was her final straw, and resulted in her suicide.
• Driven to Suicide: How she died.
• Fan Disservice: She might be completely naked, but she's also covered in self-inflected slash wounds.
• Female Misogynist: Seems more aggressive toward the female houseguests, potentially due to jealousy.
• Murder Into Malevolence: A woman with poor self esteem became quite violent after death.
• The Perfectionist: Despite her natural beauty, she always perceived herself as having flaws and imperfections, even when they weren't there. This is actually a real life mental disorder, called Body Dysmorphic Disorder
• Self-Surgery: Dana apparently tried to fix some imperfection on her face by herself. It went so wrong that it left her blind in one eye.

The Pilgrimess

Isabella Smith

Played by: Xantha Radley

• Cold-Blooded Torture: Put on public display, mocked, and stoned for weeks on end until succumbing to hunger.
• Stock Punishment: Was accused of being a witch and was stuck in these until she died. As a ghost, she's still locked in them.
• Unluckily Lucky: She managed to escape from a burning building without a single burn. Unfortunately, this made the townsfolk even more certain she was a witch.
• Witch Hunt: The victim of one.

The Great Child and The Dire Mother

Harold Shelburne

Played by: C. Ernst Harth

• All of the Other Reindeer: Was frequently the target of ridicule due to his unusual appearance and relationship with his mother.
• Asshole Victim: The carnival barker he killed, who raped his dwarf mother.
• Barbaric Battleaxe: His ghost carries the same hatchet he used to dismember the other carnies.
• Manchild: Wears a bib and diaper even though he died fully grown.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Went on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge after his mother's death.
• Small Parent, Huge Child: He and the Dire Mother are the ghosts of a 3-foot-tall sideshow performer and her enormous adult son.

Margaret Shelburne

Played by: Laurie Soper

• All of the Other Reindeer: Was mocked and ostracized by everyone around her, even after joining a circus freakshow.
• Desperately Craves Affection: When she was alive, being treated as different from everyone else since childhood resulted in this mindset.
• My Beloved Smother: Treats her son Harold like a baby, even after they've both died. She can even be seen spoon-feeding him in one scene.
• Little People Are Surreal: A three-foot-tall freakshow performer.
• Rape as Backstory: Her son was conceived when she was raped by one of the freaks known as the Tall Man.
• Shrinking Violet: In life, she was shy and rarely stood up for herself.

The Hammer

George Markley

Played by: Herbert Duncanson

• Bald of Evil: He's as bald as an egg and a very violent spirit.
• Crusading Widower: Sought revenge for his family's lynching.
• Death by Irony: After being tied to a tree, nails were driven into his body using his blacksmithing hammer. Then, his prized left hand was severed and replaced with the hammer head.
• Murder Into Malevolence: An honest and hardworking family man unjustly persecuted in life, a vicious and terrifying spectre in death.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: His family was murdered so he went and beat their murderers to death with his hammer.
• Scary Black Man: Easily one of the most intimidating ghosts.
• Weapons of Their Trade: In life, he used his blacksmith's hammer to lay waste to Nathan and his goons, and as it was attached to his wrist before his death, he thus still uses it as a ghost.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: In the top three of the deadliest ghosts in the house, but unlike the other two was just a humble blue-collar worker who wanted to be left alone - until a racist lynch mob killed his family and brutally tortured him to death.

The Jackal

Ryan Kuhn

Played by: Shayne Wyler

• Animal Motifs: Well, a jackal. He's an opportunistic predator most likely to attack single houseguests that wander away from the group, and his signature demented cackling is similar to the yipping of a wild dog. In his final onscreen appearance he walks away from the burning ruins of the Ocularis and throws back his head for a victory howl, finally free of his torment in the afterlife.
• Ax-Crazy: Both in life and in death.
• Bedlam House: The asylum he checked himself into put his head in a metal cage à la Bloodborne.
• Even Evil Has Standards: When he was alive he often attacked stray women and prostitutes. Hoping to be cured, he checked himself into an asylum.
• Evil Laugh: His presence is accompanied by echoed laughter.
• Face Death with Dignity: While it's implied he could have managed to escape the asylum fire that killed him, he chose to let himself die, as it's what he deserved.
• The Hyena: Was originally his name in early drafts of the script. Tends to announce his presence with a villainous cackle.
• Ironic Fear: He let himself die in the asylum fire, and now is afraid of fire.
• Laughing Mad: He does that a lot.
• Reluctant Psycho: The whole reason why he checked himself into the asylum in the first place.
• Serial Rapist: What he was in life. He did realize it was evil, but the asylum he checked himself into did not help matters.
• Son of a Whore: His mother was a prostitute, and he never knew his father.

The Juggernaut

Horace "Breaker" Mahoney

Played by: John DeSantis

• Ax-Crazy: He was a violent serial killer in life, luring stranded drivers back to his junkyard where he would brutalise them with his bare hands before feeding the gore to his dogs. Being dead hasn’t tempered his taste for psychotic violence at all, given that he had murdered over 40 more people who visited his junkyard before being brought to heel by Cyrus and his forces.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Was an outcast in life due to his abnormal height.
• Asshole Victim: Considering he was a serial killer in life, it's not the biggest tragedy that the police gunned him down.
• The Brute: He uses his brute strength to wreak havoc and mutilate those who get in his way, even ripping apart human bodies with his bare hands.
• The Dreaded: The biggest and most dangerous ghost in the house. His body count only grew after he died.
• Make Sure He's Dead: He was on the receiving end during his death. After he broke free of his handcuffs and claimed three cops' lives, then finally fell underneath a hail of no less than fifty bullets, the cops unloaded another clip into Horace's body, "just to be sure".
• Parental Abandonment: Part of his backstory. He was abandoned at birth by his mother and his father died years later.
• Rasputinian Death: One of his would-be victims turned out to be an undercover cop. After breaking free of his cuffs, it took over fifty rounds of gunfire to take him down. With another clip pumped into him just to make sure.
• Serial Killer: While alive, he would pick up stranded drivers and bring them back to his junkyard, where he would tear them apart with his bare hands and feed the remains to his dogs. He killed six people in this way before the police caught him in a sting operation. After death, he continued killing anyone who visited, racking up a total kill of over 40 before his capture.
• The Stoic: Unlike The Jackal, shows little to no emotion besides a cold sneer as he manually rips his victims apart or snaps them in half with his freakish strength.

The Broken Heart

• Act of True Love: How The Broken Heart is created.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The thirteenth and final ghost is created when someone willingly gives their own life in exchange for another.
• Power of Love