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(Jeremy Dyson & Andy Nyman's) Ghost Stories

Started by Blue Jam, March 28, 2018, 06:43:48 PM

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Mark Steels Stockbroker

I'm now watching Ghost Story (1974) and it's jolly good, although the spookiest thing so far is coming back to this thread to check who mentioned it and it turns out to be me.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Mark Steels Stockbroker on April 27, 2018, 09:29:31 PM
I'm now watching Ghost Story (1974) and it's jolly good, although the spookiest thing so far is coming back to this thread to check who mentioned it and it turns out to be me.


No, it isn't.














































































































Mark Steels Stockbroker

Even spookier, the Young Girl is played by Sally Grace, later Week Ending starlet.

Noodle Lizard

Finally got to see it (having seen the play at least three times) and my overall opinion is that it wasn't a particularly effective adaptation, and probably doesn't stand up very well on its own merits either.  I'll have to have a think about it, but here's the ramble.

The person I went with, who didn't even know it was a stage play beforehand, was equally underwhelmed, mind, and it didn't seem to get much of a reaction out of the nearly full-house audience - which isn't a great barometer, mind, given how many awful horror films get praised to the heavens whilst genuinely impressive efforts are largely shrugged off.  But I feel like it was going for the kind of scares that would impress that audience, and it didn't succeed in that regard either. 

I'd be surprised to find out anyone was actually scared by it.  The stage play wasn't especially scary either, but you could appreciate it differently because it was very cleverly staged and had a pretty unique framing device for a play.  Those same things translated to screen ... I dunno.  I don't think the script alone is effective enough, and things which worked fine in the play were completely ineffectual on screen.  I was surprised how much they stuck to some bits from the play, actually, instead of taking full advantage of the virtually limitless medium of film.

Good things:

- Pretty solid performances across the board (though we weren't left with any characters long enough to really care, and Nyman's character had somehow far less of a dynamic than the stage counterpart).

- Mostly well-shot.  A lot of modern horror seems to forget that it's actually a film, so it was nice to see some good visual storytelling put to use.  Some great use of focus (or lack thereof).

- The little, understated spooks - the thing behind the old man in the trailer, the mop illusion in the Paul Whitehouse bit.  I even thought the crib apparition in Freeman's bit was good, but undermined by the "Big Scare" immediately after, which was horrendously-executed.

Bad things:

- Not scary.  Pretty much a dealbreaker for a horror movie, at the end of the day.  Like I said, I can't imagine anyone being more than mildly startled.  The entire Alex Lawther sequence had people hooting, which was definitely not the effect of the stage version of that sequence.

- The framing device didn't work.  Yeah, he's in a coma, but even so almost everything within it feels largely irrelevant and without purpose.  The stage version was detached enough for the ending to be a complete twist.  In that, Nyman's character is never even remotely sympathetic to the claims, basically presenting them to us for entertainment, until one of the characters breaks some kind of fourth wall and addresses him directly, at which point you start getting a "no, no, this is all wrong" type of reaction, which makes the "coma dream" reveal a lot more believable as well as shocking, rather than the dull descent into madness we see in the film.  In the play, you're comforted by the character explaining everything away until he becomes the focus of the inexplicable - in the film, you're never really left to question anything; ghosts are definitely real in this world, almost from the start.

Also, the framing narrative being three "unsolveable mysteries" just didn't make any sense.  In the play, he's sharing these stories as a way of demonstrating people's ability to be deceived.  In the film, you're supposed to believe these anecdotal "I saw a ghost" stories have stumped the God of Skepticism.  In the play, the relative banality of the stories makes sense given how they're presented within the framing of skeptical analysis, but there's nothing in the material to justify the "checkmate, skeptic!" conceit that the film leads with.  Each story really does come down to "I went into a room and saw a ghost".

Good luck tying these disparate phone-typed thoughts into anything at all cohesive, but that's what's on my mind.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on April 28, 2018, 10:13:29 AM
Good luck tying these disparate phone-typed thoughts into anything at all cohesive, but that's what's on my mind.

I thought it was very thoughtful, eloquent post actually.

Out of interest, do you think fear is more subjective than humour? Something I've never considered before. You're a connoisseur of the horror genre and have expressed an interest in extreme cinema/ literature/ documentary/ actual harrowing footage of grimness; how are you ever able to get scared by anything now?
Obviously, being chased down an alleyway at night or going for medical tests are the real scary stuff of life but what non-reality experiences makes the hairs prickle on your neck? I felt that sensation with a couple of Ghost Stories moments and I'm a horror hound too. Am I more sensitive? Do I have a more vivid imagination? Or am I just easily pleased?

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on April 28, 2018, 10:13:29 AM

Also, the framing narrative being three "unsolveable mysteries" just didn't make any sense.  In the play, he's sharing these stories as a way of demonstrating people's ability to be deceived.  In the film, you're supposed to believe these anecdotal "I saw a ghost" stories have stumped the God of Skepticism.  In the play, the relative banality of the stories makes sense given how they're presented within the framing of skeptical analysis, but there's nothing in the material to justify the "checkmate, skeptic!" conceit that the film leads with.  Each story really does come down to "I went into a room and saw a ghost".


That's actually addressed in the film though. The stories aren't held up by the film to be unsolvable, they're presented that way by a character in the film and Goodman does say there's nothing in them at the point just before all hell breaks loose in the film. I think the audience is meant to be in Goodman's shoes and wonder what's supposed to be special about those stories as it goes along.

marquis_de_sad

Quote from: worldsgreatestsinner on April 28, 2018, 02:39:26 PM
That's actually addressed in the film though. The stories aren't held up by the film to be unsolvable, they're presented that way by a character in the film and Goodman does say there's nothing in them at the point just before all hell breaks loose in the film. I think the audience is meant to be in Goodman's shoes and wonder what's supposed to be special about those stories as it goes along.

Except from the second story on, Goodman is already seeing ghosts himself.

Noodle Lizard

Exactly, he's seeing his own ghost in a car by the time the second one's through, and he basically loses all outward skepticism early on until that panicked "No! Ghosts aren't real!" moment mentioned.  I understand what they were going for within the context of the film, but I don't think it worked nearly as well as in the play, where he's completely adamant, scoffing even, until Freeman's character (played by Nathan Barley originally) starts talking to him directly.  It's a much more effective twist, though I'm not sure if there would be a good way to translate that to film.

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on April 28, 2018, 01:04:49 PM
I thought it was very thoughtful, eloquent post actually.

Out of interest, do you think fear is more subjective than humour? Something I've never considered before. You're a connoisseur of the horror genre and have expressed an interest in extreme cinema/ literature/ documentary/ actual harrowing footage of grimness; how are you ever able to get scared by anything now?
Obviously, being chased down an alleyway at night or going for medical tests are the real scary stuff of life but what non-reality experiences makes the hairs prickle on your neck? I felt that sensation with a couple of Ghost Stories moments and I'm a horror hound too. Am I more sensitive? Do I have a more vivid imagination? Or am I just easily pleased?

Of course horror's absolutely subjective.  Yeah, it is rare for me to be truly scared by entertainment nowadays, but I think I can still appreciate when something is effectively scary - unique, thoughtful, visual, conceptual, a combination of all the above.  Ghost Stories fell short for me overall, but I appreciated a small number of "scares" in it.

There are also scenes in entertainment, as well as weird stuff found on the internet (not extreme stuff, I dislike and avoid that), that have scared or disturbed me so much that I really don't want to see them again.  The supernatural is always  the most effective horror for me, and I'm able to spook myself plenty around the house at night, despite never believing in ghosts.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on April 28, 2018, 07:53:43 PM
Of course horror's absolutely subjective.  Yeah, it is rare for me to be truly scared by entertainment nowadays, but I think I can still appreciate when something is effectively scary - unique, thoughtful, visual, conceptual, a combination of all the above.  Ghost Stories fell short for me overall, but I appreciated a small number of "scares" in it.

There are also scenes in entertainment, as well as weird stuff found on the internet (not extreme stuff, I dislike and avoid that), that have scared or disturbed me so much that I really don't want to see them again.  The supernatural is always  the most effective horror for me, and I'm able to spook myself plenty around the house at night, despite never believing in ghosts.

The most freaked out I've got recently was sitting alone slightly pissed late one night and doing one of those immersive horror VR apps with my Apple cardboard kit. Haven't felt as spooked as that in an age.

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on April 28, 2018, 09:53:59 PM
The most freaked out I've got recently was sitting alone slightly pissed late one night and doing one of those immersive horror VR apps with my Apple cardboard kit. Haven't felt as spooked as that in an age.

I often go to "extreme haunts" and immersive theater (look up stuff like Blackout), so my senses really are dulled in many regards - that stuff is definitely stressful and tense, but very rarely actually scares me.  But I still get a bit scared in regular haunted houses and ghost trains, and live in mortal fear of virtually every theme park ride due to my fear of animatronics.  So I can do things where you're basically tortured, but not Pirates of the Caribbean.  Definitely takes all sorts.

I think VR is going to be very important for horror, but I haven't seen a particularly great example thus far (I've seen maybe two things).  Any recommendations?

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on April 28, 2018, 11:00:00 PM
I often go to "extreme haunts" and immersive theater (look up stuff like Blackout), so my senses really are dulled in many regards - that stuff is definitely stressful and tense, but very rarely actually scares me.  But I still get a bit scared in regular haunted houses and ghost trains, and live in mortal fear of virtually every theme park ride due to my fear of animatronics.  So I can do things where you're basically tortured, but not Pirates of the Caribbean.  Definitely takes all sorts.

I think VR is going to be very important for horror, but I haven't seen a particularly great example thus far (I've seen maybe two things).  Any recommendations?

I must check out Blackout, sounds right up my street. You're Stateside, aren't you? Have you ever been to the Universal Halloween Nights? They're great fun and those horror houses certainly my made heart thud a bit faster than normal. Well, it tends to when you're being chased through an abattoir by Leatherface brandishing a chainsaw above his head. No animatronics, if I recall.

https://www.halloweenhorrornights.com

The VR games for the Apple cardboard kit I enjoyed were Sisters and VR Abandoned Horror Hospital. They are short but effective if you are alone and in the right state of mind.

Or if you want real fear? Do this hobby at weekends.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX81OLxYJaY

Noodle Lizard

PMing you, so as not to derail the (admittedly dead) thread.


Keebleman

I thought this really delivered on creepiness, especially the first two 'case studies', and the locations were really well chosen, but otherwise it wasn't that much more satisfying than all other portmanteau horrors.  The individual stories all had a beginning and a middle but no end, and that the conclusion kinda sorta accounted for this was no compensation.  The epilogue went on way too long as well, and I had the sense it was done just to get their money's worth out of Martin Freeman.

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: Keebleman on May 17, 2018, 02:18:16 PM
I thought this really delivered on creepiness, especially the first two 'case studies', and the locations were really well chosen, but otherwise it wasn't that much more satisfying than all other portmanteau horrors.  The individual stories all had a beginning and a middle but no end, and that the conclusion kinda sorta accounted for this was no compensation.  The epilogue went on way too long as well, and I had the sense it was done just to get their money's worth out of Martin Freeman.

To be fair, that character in the play (played by Nicholas Burns originally) served the same purpose.  Obviously dragged out a bit for the feature film, mind.  I think the play wasn't much longer than an hour.

Shaky

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on April 29, 2018, 03:42:51 PM
Or if you want real fear? Do this hobby at weekends.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX81OLxYJaY

Jesus, I had to watch that through my fingers. My idea of hell is being stuck somewhere like that. Besides the cramped conditions, what if there's a big spider?

SteveDave

This is "out there" now and I saw it last night. I really liked it even though (as I posted earlier) I'd read the plot online but I was still a bit spooked by the Paul Whitehouse section mostly. And when "Kojak" was jamming his finger in Goodman's mouth and that became the tube in his mouth. Lovely stuff

SteveDave

Also, was there a reason the film ended with "The Monster Mash"?

marquis_de_sad

Quote from: SteveDave on July 24, 2018, 10:21:21 AM
Also, was there a reason the film ended with "The Monster Mash"?

Ironic kitsch.

St_Eddie

Quote from: SteveDave on July 24, 2018, 10:21:21 AM
Also, was there a reason the film ended with "The Monster Mash"?

Because it's a graveyard smash!

Mister Six

#81
SPOILERS











My wife and I watched this last night, after she saw an old poster for it during a brief flit through London. Wasn't aware that it was a stage play until afterwards, but in retrospect that made many of the scenes make sense - I can imagine the zombie fella turning into the life support system is more impressive when you're looking at actual human beings on a stage, rather than edited-together footage. Likewise tree monster in the second story.

Er, yeah, anyway, other than the generally excellent cast (Whitehouse and the lad from that Black Mirror episode especially) and some lovely direction, I was a bit disappointed by this. Lots of good moments that never really cohered into much for me. Like others, I thought each little vignette was going to be a proper self-contained story with a twist, or at least some kind of conclusion, rather than a few spooky scenes that just kind of stop.

I also didn't think the wider narrative really worked, and felt mostly like a cop-out (it doesn't matter if none of it really makes sense or is implausible because IT'S A DREAAAAMMM). "The mind sees what it wants to see" didn't feel like it connected at all with the notion of being locked in - presumably he doesn't want to see all this horrible stuff), and the theme of absent/overbearing fathers seemed to sort of flap about loosely. I know that bit is supposed to come from his own poor relationship with his dad, but it didn't really seem to mesh with the stuff about proving or disproving the supernatural, the mind seeing what it wants to see, or his guilt at letting the disabled kid die. Can't help but feel it would have made more sense if he'd been guilty about not standing up to his dad and helping his sister - maybe if she'd committed suicide or something, I dunno.

So, er, yeah, I can see why this would be exhilarating and amazing as a live experience, with lots of clever visual effects and lighting trickery and so on, but without the spectacle, the joins are all too visible. Or were for me.

Speaking of the live experience...

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on April 15, 2018, 12:19:03 AM
Like the film, at the very end of the production we realise it has all been a comatose night terror and the curtain comes down. Only for it to rise again to the beginning of the show where Nyman takes the stage yet again and once more the pen rolls off the lectern.

Loud scream. Blackout.

Coo, that's brilliant. There was a hint of that in the film when he screams "No! Not again!" but then the conversations in the hospital ward all appear to come before his dream state (since they apparently influence it with certain words and phrases), so it feels more like a one-off... unless these three people all have the same conversations about shotguns and sunbeams over and over again.

Maurice Yeatman

Just watched it as it's now available to rent. Three or four too many soundtrack jump scares as other have said, but loads of really effective moments, and Paul Whitehouse and Alex Lawther were superb.

I thought the tunnel sequence with young Goodman was excellent - those two cunts ne'er-do-wells were totally believable, which doesn't often happen with bullies in filmed fiction. Took me back to a few incidents from my wimpy youth.

Hecate

Comedy horror rarely works well, I think. You have to be extremely talented to pull it off.

The comedy was very flat in this and only served to suck all of the tension out the slow bits.

It was enjoyable and watchable but very mediocre for the most part, totally saved by the fun, bleak ending though.

olliebean

The original theatrical version of this is back on at the Lyric Hammersmith next year, 30th March - 11th May. In case anyone who didn't see it the first time around wants to compare.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Hecate on September 04, 2018, 10:35:05 PM
Comedy horror rarely works well, I think. You have to be extremely talented to pull it off.

The comedy was very flat in this and only served to suck all of the tension out the slow bits.

It was enjoyable and watchable but very mediocre for the most part, totally saved by the fun, bleak ending though.

I don't think it ever purported to be a 'comedy horror'; whatever gave you that idea?  It had some dark comic moments but no more than Dead Of Night, the Amicus/ Hammer portmanteau movies or even The Thing or Aliens come to that.

Bad Ambassador

More to that, one of the segments of Dead of Night - the golf story - is a full on comedy, with nary a trace of horror.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Bad Ambassador on September 05, 2018, 12:48:35 PM
More to that, one of the segments of Dead of Night - the golf story - is a full on comedy, with nary a trace of horror.

True, but you wouldn't describe Dead Of Night as an Ealing comedy though.

However, the Dr Van Straatan character is played by the actor with a twinkle in the eye rather like the Charles Cameron character in Ghost Stories.

Hecate

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on September 05, 2018, 12:42:06 PM
I don't think it ever purported to be a 'comedy horror'; whatever gave you that idea?

Well, there was a lot of casting of comedy actors, that bit at the start where the Nathan Barley medium goes "I've got a little boy here saying `my blood hurts`? Does that make any sense?"
"Yes, he had Leukemia"
and then the debunker rushes the stage and it makes the mother cry even more and there's a freeze frame of projectile streams of tears.
The tone was set in that opening sequence and everything from then on had a little knowing black comedy wink, an overall tone which I think worked against the film until the end.

I think the only time I smiled at any of it was when the guy from the "nonce bank job" black mirror episode goes "I just look over there if I don't want to see it" and in amongst all the pictures of daemons on his wall is a picture of sooty and sweep. There was loads of little moments like that that were so flat but I'm assuming were supposed to get a wry chuckle from a cinema audience.
I think it would have worked a lot better if it was played straight. It was too silly at times, I thought.

The ending was great though, realising that the guy had attempted suicide and this was all just his conscience fighting itself in a comatose death fantasy. Very bleak and truly horrifying, that recurring shot of the window with the curtains being revealed as all he'd been able to see while lying in the hospital bed.
I mean obviously Mulholland Drive was a far far better film, much more enjoyable and it didn't feel the need to explain itself, but this was a watchable, throwaway lite version.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Hecate on September 05, 2018, 01:38:55 PM
Well, there was a lot of casting of comedy actors, that bit at the start where the Nathan Barley medium goes "I've got a little boy here saying `my blood hurts`? Does that make any sense?"
"Yes, he had Leukemia"
and then the debunker rushes the stage and it makes the mother cry even more and there's a freeze frame of projectile streams of tears.
The tone was set in that opening sequence and everything from then on had a little knowing black comedy wink, an overall tone which I think worked against the film until the end.

I think the only time I smiled at any of it was when the guy from the "nonce bank job" black mirror episode goes "I just look over there if I don't want to see it" and in amongst all the pictures of daemons on his wall is a picture of sooty and sweep. There was loads of little moments like that that were so flat but I'm assuming were supposed to get a wry chuckle from a cinema audience.
I think it would have worked a lot better if it was played straight. It was too silly at times, I thought.

I mean obviously Mulholland Drive was a far far better film, much more enjoyable and it didn't feel the need to explain itself, but this was a watchable, throwaway lite version.

I saw those moments as gallows humour rather than comedy per se, but each to their own. I couldn't get on with Mulholland Drive at all and can't really connect the two movies other than its fragmented structural elements.