Here’s a more low-key horror film that caught my eye—Ghost
Stories, inspired supposedly by Hammer and Amicus films of the 1960s. Hammer in
particular ranged from creepy classics like Quatermass to cheesy nonsense like
Taste the Blood of Dracula, followed up I guess by Sample the Sesame Cake of
Dracula. In any case, I was also intrigued by Martin Freeman being in it, and
truth be told, he does have a larger role in it than you may think. So all that
being said, let’s have a look.
The film centers around skeptic and debunker Philip Goodman,
played by Andy Nyman, who has a disdain for charlatans and belief in the
supernatural. One day, he gets a message from a long-missing professor who also
ran in his line of work in the 1970s—except now he’s a believer, and challenges
Goodman to solve three mysterious cases, the flashbacks to which provide the
stories in what’s basically an anthology of sorts.
Philip himself is probably the weakest link in the film—he’s
not very likeable, which may be the point, but otherwise, he just sort of
ambles along between all these stories before, not to spoil too much, it all
connects together for him in a very personal way. Nyman does a decent job with what
he has, but for most people, the main draw is going to be creepy Bilbo Baggins—even
if the latter doesn’t really show up until the last third.
But the stories themselves? The first one centers around a
security guard in a former asylum—there’s some slow burn to establish
creepiness and mood, which I like, although it’s often interspersed with more
typical stuff like jump scares and lights going out. Nevertheless, the film knows
how to keep cranking up the tension, which I enjoy a lot. For me, a standard of
horror is a certain scene in The Shining, the Room 237 scene—where things start
creepy and just going up, and up, not relenting or trying to break things up
like too many annoying contemporary flicks do. And as cheesy as Ghost Stories
sometimes gets, it aims for this sort of feel and does a decent job of it.
The second is more over the top, involving a teenager having
a devilish encounter in the woods—this is the sort of thing that’d terrify me
as a kid, knowing there’s something creepy in the woods, shadows, or
potentially right behind you, but not being able to do anything about it or
even know where it is, or even get away from it. This one definitely feels the
most Hammer of the lot, dealing with English interpretations of cursed woods or
satanic folklore. It is also kinda silly when you stop and think, but I was
having fun having the first good tingle up my spine from a horror flick in a while.
And finally, we get to the last one, which is a fairly
standard poltergeist fare that happens to have Martin Freeman playing a rich
douchebag. It’s more his performance that sells it, and let’s just say that’s
not the last we see of him. After that, things keep going, and keep getting weird—I
won’t spoil things, but suffice it to say I was expecting some standard thing
of Goodman reconsidering things or having a ‘is it real or not’ climax—yeah,
that’s not really what happens.
Ghost Stories doesn’t reinvent things massively, and does
succumb to the odd cliché, but what it does, it does earnestly and is spooky enough
that there’s fun to be had for horror fans of the old school and the new. I found
it a pleasant surprise, with an ending that you’ll be sure to be discussing
among friends if you see it as a group, and the performances are all done
sincerely and are nice to watch. Along with A Quiet Place, this is another horror
film I recommend this month.
Comments
Post a Comment