I Watch Films: Ghost Stories

 

Ghost Stories

Philip Goodman is a lonely academic who debunks psychics and mediums, in a slightly crass and obnoxious way to be as flamboyant as possible. He is invited to the caravan of legendary 1970s paranormal investigator, Charles Cameron, who was one of his inspirations. Now dying, Cameron has three cases he can’t explain and gives them to Goodman.

A nightwatchman (Paul Whitehouse) full of regrets about his daughter in a coma, is haunted by a young girl’s spirit in a former asylum. A teenager runs down a creature in a car and afterwards seems to be followed by something, is ostracised by his parents. And a financier (Martin Freeman) was haunted by a poltergeist, following which his wife dies giving birth to something that might not be a child; then, having finished talking to Goodman the financier shoots himself.

These are all unsettling but Goodman is unconvinced; hallucinations from stress and neuroses could explain them all. He returns to confront Cameron, only to discover that none of this is what it seems and he will have to look back into his own past and admit his own failings. Yet this is, in the end, futile.

Some very effective short horror stories, a particular highlight Freeman’s upbeat financier, having finished his story mater of factly kills himself is genuinely shocking in a way that reinforces the horror of his segment. I wasn’t a big fan of the end, too much futility and despair in the (eventual) rational explanation for all these goings on.

Watch This: Truly scary horror portmanteau film
Don’t Watch This: Gloomy and depressing