Ghost Stories (2018)

Ghost Stories (2018)

The portmanteau horror film produced some classics of the genre. Dead of Night. Asylum with good old Geoffrey Bayldon. The one with Tom Baker and the voodoo. Classics. One way or another.

So it was nice to see that tradition brought back to life here. 

 

 
Alas, I was left with the overwhelming feeling that while Ghost Stories has bags of atmosphere, and imagery, it didn't have much in the way of ghost stories, and the imagery wasn't earned. When people come to horror, they instantly think of horrific images (Reagan's possession, The Thing revealed, and so on) but forget these things are laced in the context of the piece. When you just take a piece of imagery and go boo, and it doesn't seem to fit into the rest of the act, it feels a bit hollow. It feels like one of those Derek Acorah performances James Randi interrupts at the start, in fact. Time and again, the image is not enough, there must be a reason. And my overwhelming feel here was that the story needed more of a trim to connect those reasons together.

On the plus side, Paul Whitehouse is grand while he lasts. The creature in the car story is a complete cliche but well done, but then sadly they give up on it right as it starts. I had a similar feel to Mark Gatiss's thing last year, it tries to give a modern facsimile to classic horror, but like a photocopy, it can't help but feel lesser than the whole. The twist feels forced, even with the foreshadowing.

In short, the best character was the priest rallying against the modern concept of worth being solely in the measurable profit. And he has 40 seconds of screen time, overcome by the dry technical, the painting by numbers spooks, and the slight hint in the air that modernity is embarrassed by these spook tales. Which is the biggest horror of all.