Three years after he made his directorial debut with the Jekyll and Hyde adaptation 'I, Monster' for AmicusStephen Weeks took matters into his own hands with a script he co-wrote with Philip Norman and Rosemary Sutcliff that locates itself in that most classic of settings, the haunted house.
Three university acquaintances meet up at an uninhabited country pile for a weekend of shooting. The mismatched trio, wet and needy Talbot (Larry Dann), bullying Duller (Vivian Mackerrell) and aloof McFayden (Murray Melvin), are, we soon discover, barely on nodding terms and have been gathered together to test whether their presence in the house will bring forth the ghost. Living up to his name the blunt Duller, despite his fervent desire to see a ghost finds nothing but frustration and boredom, MacFayden is unsettled but it's the sensitive Talbot who via a creepy porcelain doll is thrown back in time into the middle of the avaricious and incestuous history of the previous inhabitants of the house, brother and sister Sophy (Marianne Faithfull) and Robert (Leigh Lawson) and their maid Rennie (Penelope Keith) along with the doctor (Anthony Bate) and Matron (Barbara Shelley) of the nearby asylum.
'Ghost Story' was obviously made on a budget much of which I suspect was used up on the odd decision to film mostly in India. Weeks does conjure up an effectively creepy atmosphere via some unusual camera angles, some effective visual sleight of hand and a great score from Pink Floyd collaborator Ron Geesin but the film is poorly lit and let down by some truly desperate acting from the main cast and, particularly in the early part of the film some clumsy attempts at comedy. It does have its moments though and as it builds to a climax there are some very effective moments including one sequence that put me in mind of the glorious hallucinatory ending of the Ealing classic 'Dead of Night' and in the final reckoning 'Ghost Story' provides some entertaining no budget creepiness.
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