Imagine, if you will, Ghostbusters. Now take out Ernie Hudson, Dan Akroyd, Bill Murray,and Harold Ramis, and replace 'em with four guys wearing costumes suitable for a high school production of Guys and Dolls. Got it? Good. Now add in a Charles Manson-ish demon, a bevy of jiggling sorority pledges, an abandoned hospital, two oversexed stoners, an ancient book, and a healthy helping of tongue-in-cheek humor and gooey gore. Got that fresh in your mind? Good. Sound lowbrow? Well, it is. However, if you're smiling right now, John Johnson's Shadowhunters might tickle your fancy just fine.

We're introduced to our heroic quartet as they battle against the incredibly silly looking demon Malphaedor. Unable to destroy him (apparently his LARPer fashion sense is one hell of an armor), the group's resident mystic Ray casts a desperate spell that binds Malphy deep underground, never to escape. Of course, the movie would be pretty goddamn short if that spell was solid, so flash forward five years. Ray and the group's leader, Murphy, are honing Ray's mystic abilities as they travel across the globe, leaving the other two members, Hudson and Goose, feeling jilted. Unable to hunt down evil wherever it may exist, they settle into a sedentary life of liquor and porno (a lifestyle that I'm far too familiar with). Finally, Ray and Murphy return with news that the spell didn't hold Malphaedor as strongly as they had hoped: a hospital that was built on top of his impromptu tomb has been condemned after a rash of suicides, homicides, unexplained deaths, and general malaise. Wanting to finish the job that they started, the Shadowhunters head to the hospital to trap Malphaedor and destroy him once and for all.

Too bad they didn't plan on the local sorority hazing their pledges into sleeping in the very haunted hospital, let alone making them stay there in their bra and panties. To make it more interesting, the head sorority sisters hire two bumbling stoners to chase the pledges around in Halloween masks, offering up a "blowjob for every girl chased out." Classy. Of course, besides offering up plenty of titillation (some of these girls are damned cute), the sisters-to-be provide perfect vessels for the body-hopping Malphaedor to possess, leading to some lovely moments of scantily clad girl-on-girl murder.

Much like a lot of the movies I've been watching (and sometimes loving) recently, Shadowhunters is lowbrow and thoroughly stupid. Characters are drawn in thin, obvious strokes with little to no room for development, with the one exception of Hudson, the bitter take-no-prisoners hardass who's willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. Far from being a traditional "hero," he recognizes the necessity of his brutality, blasting away at innocent people possessed by Malphaedor simply so that the demon will have one less host to inhabit. Besides that, we've got the battle-hardened leader, the cocky and gifted rookie, and the jive-talking black guy (who uttered the phrase "scattered ass," quite a few times). The women are all catty, shrieking bitches who spend just as much time calling each other names as they do getting their tops torn off and engaging in brutal quasi-lesbian antics. In spite of its shortcomings, it never dragged or felt overlong. Perhaps because it didn't really have a "message" to get across, it never took forever to reach its point...if anything, there really is no point besides entertaining the audience, which is fine by me.

Shot on video, Shadowhunters looked fairly decent. The picture looked fairly clear with no overly dark scenes (often a pratfall of video) for us to navigate through. Audio, on the other hand, is a totally different story. Dialogue ranged from fairly clear to hollow and echoed, which indicates to me that Johnson wasn't using a traditional boom mike. Extras are completely nonexistent, as this is a screener disc. Damn.

If you're looking for a provocative, white knuckle thriller to discuss with your friends over cappuccino and biscotti, keep looking bucko. Shadowhunters is brainless, stupid fun, plain and simple. But sometimes, a man's gotta have a Colt 45 instead of Courvoisier, right?