Hello!
I started last week with some American horror, so it’s only right that I start this one with some British horror. This is Ghost Stories!
IMDb summary: Arch sceptic Professor Phillip Goodman embarks upon a terror-filled quest when he stumbles across a long-lost file containing details of three cases of inexplicable ‘hauntings’.
- Ghost Stories was written and directed by Andy Nyman (who also played the lead) and Jeremy Dyson. Nyman has worked quite a lot alongside psychological illusionist Derren Brown and that collaboration has influenced a lot of projects, including Ghost Stories, which actually started as a play on West End (co-written by both Nyman and Dyson) and was adapted to film this year.
- For the first 70minutes of the movie, I thought that the writing for it was good but not particularly original. The psychic detective character was an interesting one to focus on and his family’s background was also quite fascinating and obviously important. The three cases themselves had some nice themes within (violence, psychosis, family drama) but they seemed quite typical for a horror movie. However, the reveals which occurred in the last 20 minutes completely changed my mind on the wiring: the rapid-fire reveals and explanations made the whole script way more genius than it seemed before. Basically, Ghost Stories had great ‘bigger picture’ writing with some good and some just okay details.
- Thematically, Ghost Stories asked whether the supernatural was real and I sort of think that it answered the question by saying that the psychological is the supernatural – inner demons result in outer ones. The second big thematic idea was the statement that things are not what they always seem and that was both true within each individual case and for a whole movie overall, as its story was not what it seemed at first. The finale with the main character being trapt in his own mind was the spookiest idea of the whole film.
- The direction of the movie was good too. The documentary-like style opening was cool and I wish that the whole picture continued to be filmed like that. The horror sequences were scary, disturbing and intense but not something one hasn’t seen (especially if you watch a lot of horror movies – I only see a few horror movies per year and I still didn’t found the horror in this one to be particularly original). I feel that the sequences were scarier when the actual supernatural figure wasn’t directly seen: I, personally, fear the unseen way more.
- Ghost Stories’ cast consisted of a writer/director Andy Nyman (with whose previous work I was unfamiliar with seeing this movie), Black Mirror’s and The End of a F***ing World’s Alex Lawther (he is amazing at playing characters on the cusp of a mental breakdown, like the ones in the aforementioned TV shows and this film), Martin Freeman (also known as a Tolkien white guy on Black Panther and my main drawn to this film), and Paul Whitehouse (The Death of Stalin). No female characters were present in the film.
In short, Ghost Stories is a spooky ride with some original packaging of familair (but still cool) ideas.
Rate: 3.7/5
Trailer: Ghost Stories
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