Ghost Stories

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Under the Radar

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Kicking off "Ghost Month", here we have a bit of a hidden gem for horror fans - that is, depending on personal tastes. Yeah, this is another one of those films that critics mostly seemingly love, but general audiences might find pretty mediocre. Once again, I find myself at an odd balance with this one, as I can easily see both sides of the coin. To some extent, this film has a uniqueness to it that's pretty admirable. However, a lot of that uniqueness is so incredibly strange and out there, it'd be easy to find it as unnecessarily tacked on.

This one is about Professor Goodman (Andy Nyman, who also directed with Jeremy Dyson) - a well-known professor and skeptical television presenter who is dead set on debunking paranormal frauds in an attempt to help people see reality, instead of focusing on the pains of losing loved ones. His family was torn apart by superstitions, and he doesn't want the same for others. However, assistance in exposing people like psychics also takes away from any shred of hope these people have in a hereafter. 

He's invited by his inspiration, a paranormal investigator named Charles Cameron (Leonard Byrne) to check out three paranormal cases, which ultimately turn the film into an anthology. The first involving Tony Matthews (Paul Whitehouse), a night watchman who encounters a haunting at an asylum; the second, an occult-obsessed teenager named Simon Rifkind (Alex Lawther) and a nasty car accident in the woods; the third, financier, Mike Priddle (Martin Freeman) who is haunted by a poltergeist while his wife is off giving birth.

After the third case, that's when the movie goes pretty well off the rails in order to get to the final scene, where it all comes together. While the first couple of acts of this film are your standard creepy ghost movie, the third act is kinda one big WTF moment until you do get to the end, where it all makes sense. But it was a bit of a struggle for me to get there.

Admittedly, there was a point where the film lost my interest, as it just got too weird. But I forced myself to stay the hell put and hope that the end was at least interesting. Then, I just didn't know how to take the ending. When all said and done, I felt that the ending provided was the only route that made any sense. At the same time, the ending is a total cop-out. When we see the final scene, you just think to yourself "oh, they're doing this... but nothing else would make any kind of sense."

The film can be found on Netlfix (at least up here in Canada), so check it out and judge for yourself. There's still plenty of good here, like eerie atmosphere, creepy imagery, likable characters, and what I love - less cheap jump scares, more overall uneasiness. I enjoyed it for the most part, but it's nothing that will blow anyone away.

3/5

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