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GHOST STORIES (2018) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

ghost stories (2018) movie

Genre | Horror

Classification | M

Running time | 98 minutes

Released | 25 October 2018

cast

Andy Nyman ... Professor Goodman
Martin Freeman ... Mike Priddle
Paul Whitehouse ... Tony Matthews
Alex Lawther ... Simon Rifkind
Paul Warren ... Woolly

director

Andy Nyman & Jeremy Dixon

writer

Jeremy Dyson
Andy Nyman

cinematographer

Ole Bratt Birkeland

music

Haim Frank Ilfman

film editor

Billy Sneddon

box office result

Worldwide $? million

Australia $? million

North America $? million

the best dialogue

Mike Priddle: You ever killed anything?
Professor Goodman: Certainly not.
Mike Priddle: Nothing you'll admit to, eh?

Charles Cameron: Things are not always as they seem.

Mike Priddle: It's funny, isn't it? How it's always the last key that unlocks everything.

GHOST STORIES (2018) MOVIE IMAGES

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Posters

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Posters

GHOST STORIES (2018) STORY SYNOPSIS

Professor Phillip Goodman devotes his life to exposing phony psychics and fraudulent supernatural shenanigans. His skepticism soon gets put to the test when he receives news of three chilling and inexplicable cases -- disturbing visions in an abandoned asylum, a car accident deep in the woods and the spirit of an unborn child. Even scarier -- each of the macabre stories seems to have a sinister connection to the professor's own life.

GHOST STORIES (2018) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty | Review date 25 October 2018
Pop Movee Rating ⭐⭐½

GHOST STORIES, the successful British play, has been adapted into a feature film by its creators, British performer Andy Nyman and writer Jeremy Dyson. The film is chock full of interesting ideas, but the story threads rely upon a last-minute connection doesn’t translate as well on film as it does on stage, leaving the viewer with a finale that isn’t as powerful as Nyman & Dyson intended or hoped for. The reliance upon a “twist” ending robs the film of its narrative strength, diminishing the power of the stories told by the three characters whose tale respective tales are the film’s focus.

Andy Nyman reprises his role from the stage production, portraying academic sceptic, Dr. Phillip Goodman. Not only does Nyman play the central character of Dr. Phillip Goodman, he also co-writes and co-directs the film with his stage show co-creator Jeremy Dyson. Nyman’s desire to adapt his stage show into the purest version of a feature film is admirable, but it also limits GHOST STORIES because there’s no creative interpretation. It’s a more elaborate version of the stage show, with settings and sequences that make the play’s story visually more slightly more expansive but doesn’t extend it beyond the themes and scenes of the play.

In the hands of a better or more experienced filmmaker, GHOST STORIES may have grown into something that possessed greater scope and ambition. Left to Nyman and Dyson, it relies upon its anthology structure with each of the three stories allocated almost an equal amount of time linked together by a common “Narrator” character; in this instance, Nyman’s sceptic Phillip Goodman. It’s a classic anthology approach, but it has limitations...

GHOST STORIES feels as though it’s a series of television episodes that have no connection, other than Goodman’s efforts to try and find a way to debunk them.

Only in the film’s final sequence do Nyman and Dyson make an effort to pull together disparate plot threads from the three different stories. However, the filmmakers don’t seem to have a lot of confidence that the viewer will comprehend what’s going on, so they draw the link between previous events and the film’s finale with such a heavy hand that it’s far too in-the-nose to convince the viewer that these “revelations” are nothing more than highly staged contrivances for the sake of their “twist” ending.

The promotion material for the play asked people not to spoil the twist, but, for those who know the Horror genre well, GHOST STORIES offers nothing new or unique.

Of comparative stories that come to mind, it’s hard not to think of A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Goodman is the surrogate for Scrooge and “Evil” is the guide through the three unconnected cases that he is challenged to investigate by fellow paranormal debunker, and Goodman hero, Charles Cameron.

The first of the cases Goodman investigates tells the tale of Night Watchman Tony Matthews (played by experienced character actor Paul Whitehouse), who works at a disused mental asylum. Matthews is a man in pain. His wife has died from cancer and his daughter suffers from “locked-in”, a condition that causes just about all the voluntary muscles in the body to freeze. Matthews has taken the Night Watchman job because he can’t sleep but he doesn’t want to face the world either. His only company is a Russian, newly-employed to look after another one of the asylum’s disused buildings, who he communicates with via two-way radio.

The sequence milks a number of Horror tropes, including a radio that becomes possessed by distorted, paranormal voices, office lights that flicker on and off whenever a “presence” is near and the flashlight that runs out of battery power at a crucial point in the story. The sequence has some similarities to the 2016 David F. Sandberg film LIGHTS OUT, where the spectre makes its way closer to the victim with each successive blackout that occurs. The technique provides a couple of good jump-scares, but that’s about it. The “presence” that Tony Matthews encounters turns out to be not very frightening.

The second case starts well and there is a genuine sense of unease about what Goodman has become involved with when he meets Simon Rifkind (Alex Lawther), a peculiar young man who has a tale that is straight from Hell.

Goodman meets Rifkind at his home to discuss what happened to him one night when his car broke down in the English countryside. Nyman & Dyson do a really good job of creating unease where none really exists in the scenes staged within Rifkind’s parents home. Goodman is puzzled by Rifkind’s parents behaviour, standing side-by-side at the kitchen sink, their backs turned away from their son. There’s an unexplained fourth person in the house, but Rifkind insists that it’s just him and his parents. It becomes clear, as the young man recounts his story to Goodman, that whatever it was he hit with his father’s car one night had unexplained power and has continued to exercise its control over Simon and his family.

The final case Goodman investigates involves successful businessman Mike Priddle (Martin Freeman), whose tale is the saddest and most bizarre. The Priddles are expecting their first child, but something goes horribly wrong and his wife dies in childbirth. While maintaining a “stiff upper lip” throughout, Priddle is obviously in pain. He was not present at the child’s birth, opting, instead, to return home to work on a business deal. There’s an underlying regret, but Proddle struggles to allow his emotions to dictate his response.

The sequence where Priddle makes his way to his baby’s room is one of the most effective in GHOST STORIES, giving the viewer a different perspective on the “Haunted House” trope. Where most filmmakers utilise the ramshackle, creaking floorboard 18th Century mansion, Nyman & Dyson choose to make Priddle’s home ultra modern, stripping it of the potential to become a cliche. It makes for an interesting change and, if as much thought had gone into the rest of the film as this sequence, GHOST STORIES may have been more than the sum of its parts.

As the story moves beyond the Priddle case, GHOST STORIES becomes much more focussed on Goodman and his connection to the cases he’s investigated.

This is where the film begins to fall apart…

The film’s final twenty minutes undo whatever effectiveness Nyman & Dyson have managed to build in presenting the three cases. The “twist” device used by the filmmakers is the least effective one available to them because it calls into question everything that has preceded the “twist” itself. Think of some great cinematic story twists from the last 20 years… They all add to the narrative or plot in a meaningful way… THE SIXTH SENSE, THE USUAL SUSPECTS, THE OTHERS… They make the viewer reassess their interpretation of the story. GHOST STORIES does not challenge the viewer in the same manner.

The Verdict

There’s a pervading sense of inexperience on display in GHOST STORIES.

Neither Andy Nyman nor Jeremy Dixon are experienced filmmakers.

Casting is one area the filmmakers demonstrate both their inexperience and along with an inability to transcend their material for the sake of delivering a feature film that moves beyond the boundaries of the play. The supporting performers are more than adequate in their roles, but the decision to allow Nyman to take the film’s central role is a mistake. It seems as though Nyman was so keen to protect his work that he couldn’t imagine anyone other than himself playing Goodman.

GHOST STORIES is also hampered by the limited scale of its visual ambition.

The film’s cinematography feels very flat and a decision to use natural lighting sources make it difficult to make out what is going on in many scenes. While this adds to the mystery of what is happening, the lack of visual clarity at important moments leave too much to the viewer’s interpretation. The film looks like a big-budget television show (not a feature film) and it’s no surprise that Cinematographer Ole Bratt Birkeland has an extensive background in television production.

The film’s mise-en-scene may have felt like a vast improvement over the limited scope of the stage, but GHOST STORIES is being presented as a feature film, not a television show.

GHOST STORIES is effective in parts, but fails to deliver consistent high quality tension, scares and mystery to keep the viewer hooked for its 98 minute running time. In the hands of a different, experienced production team, the film may have been able to build toward its “twist” ending, delivering a genuine “shock” moment for the viewer. As it turns out, the Nyman & Dyson’s GHOST STORIES struggles to scare off the genre’s tropes, cliches and contrivance. Coupled with a lack of ambition, it’s a frightening way to kill a couple of hours, but not in the way its makers may hoped.