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Furnace is another of those spooky little-girl ghost movies that have been so popular since the American versions of The Ring and The Grudge proved so successful.  I’ll be the first to admit that I found both of the aforementioned titles to be pretty scary, what with the ghost-gals pursuing their prey in a spastic, eerie fashion.  Since then, however, I’ve discovered that, if you can’t get enough of girls walking around in a jerky, spastic way, your best bet is the Jerry Lewis telethon.  The thrill, quite frankly, is gone.  But yet they keep on making these movies (that new one playing at the theatre currently, Shutter, looks like its literally the same movie as those formerly mentioned, albeit with a different cast).  Furnace is very similar as well, as seems to be aping a forumula (nothing new in horror, of course), but is still a pretty fun ride.

This time around the spirit of a burnt little girl is hanging around in a prison.  She seems to have been there for quite awhile, but isn’t stirred up until prison officials decide that they need extra room for more prisoners, so the walls between the new wing of the prison, and the old wing, need to be knocked down.  Soon guards and prisoners alike are being spooked and killed by the grinning, crispy-faced young gal, who has a pretty decent cast to haunt (including Tom Sizemore, Danny Trejo, Ja Rule and the woman who played Samara in The Ring 2.

Furnace is not great, but it is a fun little time-waster.  Not gory enough to appeal to hard-core horror fans, this one seems to be aimed more at a mainstream crowd.  Something to keep the walls at Blockbuster not totally eclipsed by big-budget Hollywood fare and direct-to-dvd romantic comedies that are concurrently making their big splash on the Lifetime channel.  And in that regard, it does it’s job in a very commendable way.  The extra’s are six alternate scenes, as well as a coupla cast interviews.

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