Ghost Stories is a 2018 dramatic horror film about a skeptic professor who embarks upon a terror-filled quest when he stumbles across a long-lost file containing details of three cases of inexplicable ‘hauntings’.
It’s tempting to call Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman‘s latest film an anthology, though it’s more like a three part story of loosely connected tales linked by a single character, avoiding most of the trappings of such. It’s based on the director’s stage play and so right away is playing with a different deck, often maintaining a sort of theatrical appeal with wide open spaces and creative practical effects that do well in creating a good deal of suspense. It’s a quiet film that is stripped of most ghost tropes, making it a genuinely effective chiller that true horror fans will surely embrace.
On a crusade of sorts, Professor Goodman (Andy Nyman) is a powerful skeptic diligently working to expose celebrated shysters who are manipulating and conning audiences, using his television show “Psychic Cheats” to spread the word. He thinks himself a kind of next generation soldier, inspired by his hero Charles Cameron (Leonard Byrne), who decades earlier did the same, clearly a reflection of James Randi. Cameron famously disappeared from the public eye and so it is surprising when he actually contacts Goodman with a request to meet. Thinking it a legitimate chance to pass the mantle, he’s letdown in discovering the man has become an alcoholic recluse, declaring that all the things they thought were false are actually true, challenging him to solve three ghost stories that have left him convinced there is a supernatural presence in the world. This sets Goodman upon a perilous journey of horror where he comes upon three men who have seen real evil and are deeply changed by it.
Ghost Stories is most assuredly fable-like and there is much about each of the stories that are rife with metaphor, themes of madness and terrible guilt culled from the shadows. We start with Tony (Paul Whitehouse) a lonely night watchman who works at a former asylum for women, dealing with a power outage that has him believing there is something stalking him in the dark. There’s Simon (Alex Lawther), a depressed and highly anxious teenager who hits something while driving home one night and is now quite certain whatever it was is now after revenge. And finally there is Mike (Martin Freeman), a wealthy man who sees ghosts when his wife is about to have a baby.
Each of the stories flashback to the events in question, and we begin to make connections about family, children, and parents, and each slowly draw Goodman into the fear, he beginning to see things on his own, creating an imbalance in his own beliefs as we learn of his own past. What’s clever about the film is how, with its three divergent hauntings, it can explore a variety of trope-ish scare tactics and give them a spin. Hallways and flashlights, wooded midnight country roads, and creepy multi-level homes are all on the menu, with Dyson and Nyman using small, deliberate but effective visuals to really pack a punch. It’s unconventional to be sure, and leads to a heckuva smart end that well, you kinda know leads to a twist. This is great horror, but it’s also fun horror, something there is just too little of. Don’t hesitate.