Ghost Stories (2018) Review!!!

Synopsis – Skeptical professor Phillip Goodman embarks on a trip to the terrifying after finding a file with details of three unexplained cases of apparitions.

My Take – Over the past two decades, on the basis of the quality of films, I have been inclined to believe that British horror films have been usually hit and miss. While some are aggressive and extensively uneasy to enjoy, whilst others have suitable acted as homage to earlier Hammer productions. For its own good, the film in discussion here from directors Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson, has been attracting a lot more attention since its inception, for two reasons – one being an adaption of a hit stage production, it comes to the screen with a built-in audience with high expectations, and second being a rare British production indulging in horror anthology territory, a sub-genre which continues to attract devoted genre fans on home viewing media but rarely breaks through onto the big screen.

So when I saw the trailer to the film, I immediately tempered expectations but what I saw increasingly intrigued me, mainly due to the presence of Martin Freeman. However, the end result was not what I predicted, which is a shame considering it’s potential. I know I’m probably going to be in the minority here, but the film felt more like toned down version of recent anthology horror films VHS and ABC’s of Death, being hit and miss with their collection of horror shorts. Its tone veers widely between dark comedy and serious horror territory, and neither work too effectively.

To boot, none of the shorts are particularly interesting and each of them end abruptly without offering much closure. While the performances are pretty solid and the production values quite decent, but for me, the majority of the film was quite disappointing and nowhere close to the best horror anthology ever made — the 2014 Argentine-Spanish film, Wild Tales.

The story follows Phillip Goodman (Andy Nyman), a host of a minor reality TV show called Psychic Cheats, who is committed to exposing those who prey on the gullible. Having established that psychics are fed information about his audience via earpiece, Phillip calls them out in front of the paying crowd. Things get exciting when he receives an invitation to visit a famed 1970s paranormal investigator, Charles Cameron, who inspired him as a boy, but has been supposedly been missing for decades and is now living in a caravan, sick and impoverished.

In exchange for their meeting Cameron requests Goodman to look into three cases he has never been able rationalize: Tony Matthews (Paul Whitehouse), a night watchmen who was stalked by something in a factory, Simon Rifkind (Alex Lawther), a young man who ran over someone or something with his car in the woods, and Mike Priddle (Martin Freeman), a businessman, who is haunted by the spirit of his unborn baby. If Goodman can explain them all away, he can die knowing that his life’s work of debunking the paranormal wasn’t for nothing. But when Goodman starts investigating it turns out there are more things at stake here than he thought about.

There is no doubt that the film starts off quite well, as I was genuinely intrigued by the idea of three case files which were supposed to be so extraordinary that after a lifetime of debunking the expert wasn’t able to explain or rationalize. The three cases also seemed convincingly atmospheric as they injected much needed chills and thrills to this horror flick. The main story itself, although basic, was ambiguously surreal and will leave you guessing right up to the final reveal. The film also throws in real life conditions, such as stress, depression and loneliness, with a ghostly undertone that certainly translates it’s ‘the brain sees what it wants you to see’ theme very well. Sadly you never get a full account of any of these experiences and although there were jumpy parts you didn’t feel connected enough to the characters to really engage with the film.

By taking a play to the cinematic landscape, the film makes a conscious effort to incorporate into the new medium, but its tone and style do not adapt to the fullest potential. The big problem with the film is that it looks like it was made in late ’70s along with that era’s low level of production and narrative expectations. What the film does is break its story into sections, bookmarking them with title cards, as well as having some fourth wall breaking from our lead in the opening few minutes. What this does wrong is not only set up false expectations of a mockumentary style but also gives the film an episodic feel, extracting any cinematic value these stories had into short give and take sideshows.

On their own the short horror stories do much to have you jumping out your seat and filled with the kind of dread that only the expectation of numerous cheap jump scares can provide. It leaves most of the film feeling like a cheap thrill ride in episodic adventures into the paranormal world. The entirety of the segment focusing on an aging man, basically consists of Whitehouse walking around a bit, then getting attacked by a ghost-thing. Leaving pretty everything left to desire. The next case about a young man who runs over the devil in his car, doesn’t sound awful, but the story goes absolutely nowhere and ends with Simon getting attacked by an evil tree-monster. The third one is by far the worst and follows Martin Freeman as he readies a nursery for his unborn child, and walks around for what feels like an age, before he has a vision of his wife and the story ends.

Sadly almost the entire film uses this staple of general horror flicks but when it moves away from this plainly overused technique to get scares, it comes into genuine thrills and horrific moments but then again only a few moments stand out for such. Psychologically, the film suffers from a certain rote clumsiness—it’s the sort of ostensibly stealthy character study that names its protagonist Goodman because it’s going to question whether he is, in fact, a good man. Also, horror thrives on the inexplicable, but when a horror film painstakingly explains the source of its horror, grounding everything in mundane past trauma, it inevitably winds up neutering itself. Interesting themes around Goodman’s Jewish upbringing and the antisemitism he’s encountered are discarded in favor of a focus on parlor tricks, and even the bleakness of the ending can’t quite reel it all back in.

The ending rapidly hurries up to you (and the professor), throwing in new things about his past and beliefs to take on board with barely anything left in the run time to use them effectively. It’s one of those in which the twist would be fine if we’d at least had some clues it was coming or some pieces to put together ourselves so it didn’t seem so completely out of the blue when it’s piled on you with minutes to go. Surprisingly this does not mirror on the performances as everyone has been cast just right, sliding into roles they are fittingly useful for.

The real shining performances comes from lead Andy Nyman, who is more impressive as an actor, pulling off occasional moments of despair that manage to be moving despite their pithily artificial context. Alex Lawther excellent expresses horrific fear of his traumatic experience which after seeing into truly exemplifies the PTSD that his character now has. Paul Whitehouse manages to standout giving a slender and frankly rather silly story more impact than it deserves through his ability to communicate fear. While Martin Freeman, appearing way late in the film, does his usual thing with enough charm and elegance to impress everyone again. On the whole, ‘Ghost Stories’ is a mediocre horror anthology which despite ambition falls short in its execution.