Ghost Stories
I bloody love an anthology horror movie, especially British ones. Films such as Amicus’ The House that Dripped Blood, and my personal favourite, Dr Terror’s House of Horrors. With their collected tales (that usually start with a bad decision and end with a cautionary twist) hanging from their central plot device like spooky fruit, they always felt like you got more scares for your movie. Shorts to fill your shorts to, if you will. Imagine my delight then, when I found out that there’s a new collection of spooky, British horror coming out. Ladies and Gentlemen, get ready for Ghost Stories.
Written and directed by Jeremy Dyson (the League of Gentlemen) and Andy Nyman (Derren Brown), and based on their stage play of the same name, it would seem like we’re off to a flying start. Nyman stars as Professor Goodman, a sceptical academic who spends his time debunking the seemingly supernatural and apparently apparaitious. One day, Prof Goodman receives a package claiming to contain evidence of three cases of genuine paranormal activity, and it is from here that our terrifying tryptic begins. In the first story, Paul Whitehouse (The Fast Show) stars as a night watchman who experiences frightening visions; in the second, Alex Lawther (Black Mirror) plays a schoolboy whose horrifying journey home is revealed; and finally in the third tale, Martin Freeman (Sherlock) recounts his experience with a poltergeist who may also be the spirit of his unborn son. As Goodman delves into them in more detail, he starts to realise that they may all have some personal significance also…
Well, of course they do. That’s how these things work. And Dyson and Nyman know how these things work. For example, the disconcerting nature of featuring people that you wouldn’t normally associate with the genre, such as Whitehouse, is just as effective as it was 40 years ago, and the movie oozes with unease, as it steadily and increasingly moves you out of your comfort zone and onto the edge of your seat. I’ve waited a long time to be scared by a movie again, and I think this could be the one.
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