Review of Ghost Stories (2018) by Tash W — 09 Dec 2018

Watching the stage version of Ghost Stories was one of the scariest experiences of my life. I was sitting on the end of a row and became convinced that someone in a costume was going to jump out and scare me in a physical way so I spent a lot of time scanning behind me and only ended up watching half the play.

But that half a show was terrifying. So I was expecting the willies to be put up me in a considerable way, and I was not disappointed. Paul Whitehouse is a dreadfully underrated actor and I would be very happy to see him in lots more things, Martin Freeman is ever reliable in his role as posho, and the 3 ghostly scenarios that are presented well and were (for a horror lightweight such as myself) very scary.

But there's a twist in the tale, which throws things into another direction, and the thing with twists is that they can be very underwhelming if the new direction they throw the story in is far less interesting than the direction pre-throw.

Such is the case with this. Everything grinds to a halt to explain something that adds very little to the overall film. A big shame. But at least no one jumped out into my living room to scare me.