It's Sunday, it's nearly Halloween, the nights are getting darker, so it's time to watch a horror film.
I’ve heard this film is based on a successful stage play. I know Andy Nyman used to write for Darren Brown (whom I have mixed feelings about). Let’s watch and see, if the rumours are correct and this pretty good but the ending is slightly rubbish.
What is below are my notes as I watch (my Mum is watching to) and spoilers will follow.
Locations are very good, a really run down ‘70s Britain vibe to them.
Ah, this looks like it’s going to be a portmanteau – about time they returned to cinema (take note Pirates of the Caribbean and Ocean's Number).
My Mum’s skin is crawling at the state of the caravan.
Why the focus on the plastic bag? Careful mate your notes are going to blow away.
STORY ONE: Paul Whitehouse, as a night watchmen, (security guard surely?).
He’s nicely uncooperative, and his is very well sketched, wished we could say the same for the professor were following.
Why is Whitehouse guarding some place so derelict? This would be better as a storage area for a company – full of wrapped pallets. CCTV for him to watch.
I’m going to make a guess, the fellow guard (the Russian) he’s talking to is going to turn either not to have been there, or died some time ago.
Duck tape them on, or superglue them in place, that'll stop the bastard ghost.
Buy yourself some snap sticks man, and spare batteries. I would not carry just one torch with me, where is his mobile phone or walkie-talkie?
Ghost in the corridor, I blinked and missed it.
'It was a girl,' says Mum.
He could lie and not make his patrol. How would they know. I'm sure I've seen an American film where someone was a night-guard at a hospital and he had to put a special key in waypoints to show he was making patrols. He was accused of interfering with dead bodies - can't think of the name of the film I think it was a remake of a French film.
Mannequins, What? I wish we knew more about the company he’s working for. If the company just want to stop vandals he could just patrol around outside.
Why fingers in the mouth? The ghost doesn’t fit well with the story of the place.
Okay, maybe the next story will be better. Whitehouse was solidly convincing though.
STORY TWO: SIMON, NERVOUS BOY
Oh, wow Simon is really twitchy.
First really creepy bit, Simon’s parents motionless stood together facing the sink. Reminds me of Sapphire & Steel somehow. All kinds of just-slightly wrong.
Someone’s been busy on the printer.
First good laugh: Sooty & Sweep!
Now we are onto the story proper, Simon’s in a car, me and my Mum agree he’s twitchy and nervous here, when he shouldn’t be, because it undermines his nervousness earlier. If he's always nervous, the horror might not be that bad. I say they should have combed his hair to the side, so he didn’t have a fringe, and should have smiled and be happy before the pesky phone calls.
He's hit someone. ‘It’ wasn’t human,’ says Mum. She's better eye-site than me. I thought I saw a goat's eye.
It’s some sort of Faun with white fur. Could it be pan?
‘Lock the bloody doors and have a kip till morning’, I say out loud in frustration. ‘I was thinking exactly the same thing,’ says Mum.
I like the fact that he's trying to get a signal on his mobile phone and it's going to get him in deeper shit.
We both guess it’s got in the car, before it did actually get in the car.
‘Stay’, it said, putting its hands on his shoulders and he replied ‘Fuck no’, and bailed - very good.
This is tense, and we both chuckle a little - this could go a number of places. Is he going to stumble across a coven of fauns dancing and say, eating his AA man?
Pan could blow his horn and he could be infected with PANic.
What? A tree thing – what?
Mum, disgusted no doubt at something being introduced out of the blue get up to make a drink.
Why is Simon still nervous? What has the faun and tree-thing to do with the apparitions upstairs and his strange parents.
Hey, Do they have goat like eyes now? That would be creepy.
Introducing a new element when, the faun functioning quite well as a horror element upset the narrative.
Oh, it's ended before its got going.
STORY THREE: MARTIN FREEMAN
Good brisk dialogue brisk for Freeman, character seems, hmm brittle?
Mum doesn’t like the urn like barrel under the stairs – she’s right something could jump out of there.
House is like a hotel lobby. Designed by computer, cold, wealthy.
Poltergeist activity – he said about having the house built, did he build it on something? Don't get many Indian Burial grounds in the UK.
We still haven’t seen the wife. Not many females at all.
That urn thing is a waterfall – it’s hideous.
Don’t think you’re allowed to have gun safes in the middle of a field. Their are supposed to be bolted to an internal wall.
This is a slow film, it seems to be going nowhere. To much is unresolved.
Hooded figure – wasn’t he in the caravan?
Shotgun blast – that was a surprise.
END OF THE WRAP AROUND: Back to the caravan.
Is it Tom Cruise under there?
With the ripping of the wall it’s all gone silly.
Wasn’t his fault though! Surely he would have told an adult.
Is he the Crypt Keeper or the Death, both are very likely knowing portmanteaus.
Oh, dear this is the ending.
Mum is disgusted that he mopped the floor but didn't wipe.
Oh, moving the mirror is a nice touch, we like Paul's character.
Conclusion: A let down. Good locations and very good acting (Paul Whitehouse needs his own horror film folks), let down by an ending that didn’t resolve or fit the premise, (a sceptic finding belief, turned into a guilty-conscious, turned into a nightmare, hey film choose ONE of these), might have worked if we learnt more about the professor – it seems we got a better character sketch of Paul Whitehouse’s character than we did about the main one. Nyman is a bit of a charisma vacuum.
Ending might have worked if the professor started to twitch when he was alone in the hospital room and mumbled 'I believe', or perhaps 'forgive me' would have been better.
Things were in the trailer that weren’t in the film (The piece of paper Nyman holds up the screen, with the ‘the’ mistake).
How was this worked as play, and did it have the same shit ending?
My verdict 3/10 for the purely for teh acting skills of Paul Whitehouse and Alex Lawther (twitchy Simon).
Mum what's your verdict out of ten?
Her reply, 'I couldn't care less.'
Not a fan then.
I have to admit, I found the whole thing more than a little disappointing. Nyman is no actor, the ending retreads that same old trope - yes, you know, THAT one - from so many other films of the last 20 years, all the stories had massive plot holes and for the first time ever in his career, Martin Freeman - a genuinely nice bloke with whom I've previously shared both a beer and a thoroughly enjoyable conversation at one of his Northern Soul/ RNB DJ nights - REALLY annoyed me. To the point where I wanted to slap him.
Much like Peter Strickland's IN FABRIC, I desperately wanted to like this: having been a fan of Dyson's writing since more or less day one, I was looking forward to acclaiming it as an utter mantelpiece, and a long-overdue return to form for the Brit horror portmanteau. Unfortunately, what I got instead was a load of loose ends, clichés, shameless M R James/ Susan Hill rip-offs and wasted opportunities. A shame. Still, at least it wasn't quite as overlong, drawn out and pretentiously unfathomable as the aforementioned Strickland piece...and it did attempt to make some form of linear sense. Well, sort of. Better luck next time, chaps...
What bits did you like of it RadioMoo? Do tell!
I would be curious to hear from anyone who saw the stage show, to be informed if there are plot differences between stage and film.
I quite like Ghost Stories - but it does lack punch and the ending shows where it all comes from but doesn't really answer anything, it does feel like a lost oppotunity.
Moo.
Very enjoyable running commentary there, Sinny, more entertaining than the film. It was rather a let down.
I don't seem to be logged on as Sinister Ornament anymore?!
Oh, I mucked something up, seems to be two different Sinister Ornament accounts now.