Ghosts was a mid 90s BBC1 series of modern day ghostly tales - two of which, 'Three Miles Up' and 'The Chemistry Lesson', we've featured here before - that has mostly disappeared from people's memories which I think is a real shame as it had some interesting moments and this episode, the first in the series, is one of them.
Written by 'Ghostwatch' writer Stephen Volk it's the story of incarcerated gangster Jack Rudkin (Derrick O'Connor) who after a near death experience develops the ability to astral project which he uses to spy on and terrorise his wife Suzi (Anita Dobson) and brother Les (David Hayman) who he discovers are having an affair.
O'Connor who had a Wyrd Britain pedigree second to none with appearences in 'Blood on Satan's Claw', 'The Final Programme', 'Hawk the Slayer', 'Jabberwocky', 'Time Bandits' and 'Brazil' is phenomenal here and utterly terrifying. Dobson is on familiar 'Eastenders' ground as the rattled wife of the proverbial dodgy geezer and falls apart with aplomb as Jack's revenge escalates and Hayman is nicely understated as the backstabbing brother.
With a running time of less than an hour Volk has crafted an entirely satisfying plot from which spin off a number of well realised narrative threads with only the very closing scene feeling a tad contrived and obvious. Director John Strickland keeps everything well grounded but successfully imparts a queazily oneiric quality to Jack's astral excusions and in all what we have is an entertainingly bleak and occasionally brutal melding of prison drama, gangster movie and ghost story.
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