“Do you believe in evil, professor? I didn’t. Until that night.”
One of the best parts about doing this column is finding the hidden gems, little-seen or otherwise obscure films that nevertheless become part of your horror-loving DNA. I had no idea that Cujo could still terrify, or that the Fright Night remake would end up being one of the best films I’ve written about for 31 Days of Fright. I was thoroughly unprepared to get my ass kicked by VHS 94 or become genuinely haunted by Noroi: The Curse. Well, to that pantheon we can now add Ghost Stories, which apart from being a genuinely great film might now be one of my favorites, full stop. As a portrait of guilt, it rivals The Ritual in its chilling effectiveness. As a portrait of creeping madness, it stands alone.
While not Lovecraftian in nature, Ghost Stories evokes the iconic opening line of “The Call of Cthulhu”: “The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.” When besieged by oppressive guilt, we need to set things straight, to true them in our minds lest the implications or looming punishment destroy us. This is where we meet Professor Phillip Goodman (played by Andy Nyman, who co-wrote and -directed the film, as well as the stage play that serves as the source material). Goodman hosts a TV show called Psychic Cheats, in which he debunks and unmasks grifters masquerading as clairvoyants. Ghost Stories begins in a kind of mockumentary format before ably switching to a conventional narrative; it does so with a nimbleness I haven’t seen since District 9.
Goodman receives a tape from Charles Cameron, an academic not unlike himself, who disappeared some twenty years prior. He eventually meets with Cameron, who lives in squalor in a seaside trailer park. Cameron is sickly and not long for this world, and he gives Goodman a task: investigate three paranormal cases that Cameron couldn’t explain away. Disprove the stories. Tell Cameron that he was right not to believe, that there’s nothing in the ether that he needs to fear. As a setup for an anthology film, it’s more or less a conventional one, but Ghost Stories isn’t a conventional anthology; each story is just part of the narrative, in ways much more significant than they appear at first.
Case #1 is Tony Matthews, a churlish former nightwatchman who Goodman meets at a chintzy pub. Matthews is withholding and dismissive, but opens up for fifty quid, but also because part of him needs to. As Tony, Paul Whitehouse delivers a remarkably nuanced and layered performance, that of a lifelong loner who hates being alone. It’s here that I might as well bring up the absolute murderer’s row of supporting actors in Ghost Stories (more on them later), as well as the film’s technical achievements. The cinematography, by Ole Bratt Birkeland, is stunning: sumptuous shadow plays evoking not only the stage where these stories were born, but also the film noirs of old. The score, by Haim Frank Ilfman, is excellent as well, matching the mood of each story perfectly; at times it’s bombastic and percussive, at other times it’s stately and elegant, heavy on strings and brass. Ghost Stories is light on jump scares (although there are a few), as it’s more interested in cultivating a sense of inescapable dread. That notwithstanding, it is never anything less than an absolute pleasure to look at and listen to.
Matthews tells Goodman a story similar to the others he’ll hear throughout the film. Alex Lawther shows up in Case #2, as Simon Rifkind, kind of a twitchy weirdo in the Barry Keoghan mold. His story is demonic where Matthews’ is supernatural, but no less effective. Lawther, so memorable in the Black Mirror episode “Shut Up and Dance,” is terrifically gifted at conveying his character’s anxiety and foisting it upon the viewer. There aren’t any real sour notes in this movie.
The most memorable of the cases is Case #3, that of Mike Priddle, played with zeal by Martin Freeman. Freeman is an inherently likable, watchable actor, so it’s a bit of a shock to see him lean into playing such a prick; Priddle is emotionally distant and casually anti-Semitic, so secure of the place in the world that his wealth has assured him that he thinks nothing of handing a loaded rifle to a man whose religion he just aspersed. Priddle’s wife is in the hospital undergoing IVF treatment, and he wiles away his time in his palatial house by drinking, staring out of windows, and essentially existing without living. His story, concerning what he believes to be a poltergeist, is the scariest of the trio (although, again, there are no duds).
I’m purposely being vague about the nature of these stories, as well as the mind-bending final act of the film, for a reason. I want you to go watch Ghost Stories and be as surprised as I was. No, not surprised, blown away. I’d heard good things about this movie but only now got around to it; don’t make the same mistake I did. Ghost Stories is a powerful and moving mediation on the nature of grief and sanity, it’s a marvel on a technical level, and it’s scary as hell. What more can you want out of a horror film?
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