A Ghost Waits Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.5

A Ghost Waits Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 12, 2021

A film depicting the afterlife as a bureaucratic labyrinth is hardly a new idea, as evidenced by everything from Beetlejuice to Defending Your Life. What's kind of sweetly engaging about A Ghost Waits, though, is how it details the story of a "workaday" ghost named Muriel (Natalie Walker), who has been happily (?) haunting a house supposedly for centuries (despite the house not really looking all that old), but who finds herself unable to sufficiently frighten a handyman named Jack (MacLeod Andrews), who has been tasked with getting the place ready for yet another new set of tenants, since no one ever seems to want to rent the place for very long (guess why). While the film begins with a brief vignette showing Muriel "evicting" the latest hapless renters, the story then segues for quite a while to Jack, who in fact is at least as hapless as any of the renters have been, though perhaps for slightly different reasons. As is repeatedly documented throughout the film, while he evidently does have friends, no one seems especially moved to return his phone calls as he attempts to find a place to stay for a few days while his apartment house is being fumigated. When he arrives at the rental house to do an inspection and any needed repairs, he finds it rather strangely equipped with furniture and other accoutrements, as if the previous inhabitants had, well, left in a panic, something that at least affords him the chance to keep a roof over his head for a few days. While a few sound effects and a couple of POV shots indicate that Muriel is right there watching him, it takes a good, long while for her to finally manifest visually in front of Jack, which may be a bit of a structural deficit for some viewers.

After the rather long establishing first act, which basically is a "one hander" for Jack, with a few referential moments for Muriel, things pick up after Muriel first manifests "for real" with Jack as an observer and assumed "victim" of yet another successful haunting. After Muriel discovers she's kind of annoying Jack more than frightening him, she goes to her supervisor, Ms. Henry (Amanda Miller), for advice. Ms. Henry suggests bringing in young upstart ghost Rosie (Sydney Vollmer) as backup, something that annoys Muriel. Meantime, Jack's lonely existence is intentionally "ghostly" in its own way, as he wanders through the ostensibly empty house, while occasionally suffering from nightmares where Muriel "visits" as an alter ego of Jack himself.

A Ghost Waits is rather old fashioned in a number of ways, including in the romantic aspect of pairing a ghost with a human, and its denouement is kind of a foregone conclusion once it's established that Jack and Muriel have feelings for each other. Still, the film has a curious if only intermittently effective sense of humor, and some winning performances. The entire film is unabashedly lo-fi, from its bare bones sets to a lack of any significant special effects, but writer, director and chief bottle washer Adam Stovall keeps things moving generally briskly (despite that overly long first act).

A Ghost Waits Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A Ghost Waits is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Arrow's insert booklet provides only the following fairly generic verbiage on the transfer:

A Ghost Waits is presented in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio with uncompressed stereo audio. The High Definition master was provided by the filmmakers.

This was shot with a camera I don't think I've encountered before in my official review duties, the Blackmagic, which evidently does have source capture resolutions of 4K, though I haven't been able to find any authoritative data as to what the DI's resolution might have been. As is mentioned in some of the supplements, the film was actually shot by two people, and was initially shot in color. The black and white cinematography is often quite striking, but there are definitely variabilities in contrast and gray scale, as can probably be made out by cycling through the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review. A lot of the film offers really sumptuously deep blacks and well articulated whites, with very nice fine detail levels (to the point you can virtually make out the white powder applied to Walker's face to make her appear "spectral"). Other moments, though, have a much grayer, hazier appearance, and there doesn't seem to be much logic as to when one "look" or the other predominates. I noticed no compression anomalies of any note.

A Ghost Waits Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

A Ghost Waits features a fine sounding LPCM 2.0 track the supports the film's limited sound design. There are some fun moments, as in the use of an old style metronome to "announce" that Jack is dreaming (and/or having a nightmare), and a subdued underscore and more boisterous source cue provide a bit of energy, but the bulk of this film is almost verité like, capturing the ambient environmental sounds of the house (ghostly or otherwise), along with dialogue, which tends to pick up more in the second and third acts. Everything is rendered cleanly and clearly without any problems whatsoever.

A Ghost Waits Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentaries

  Audio commentary by writer / director Adam Stovall also includes his friend Corrie Loeffler

  
  

  Audio commentary by Adam Stovall and MacLeod Andrews

  
  

  Audio commentary by the cast and crew features Adam Stovall, Mike Potter, MacLeod Andrews, Sydney Vollmer, and Nick Thurkettle and M.J. Thomas.

• Humanity and the Afterlife in A Ghost Waits (HD; 15:11) is a video essay by Isabel Custodio which offers a glut of clips from other films featuring ghosts and the afterlife, going back to 1908.


• Interviews with the Cast and Crew are Zoom calls moderated by tt stern-enzi.

  MacLeod Andrews (HD; 21:24)

  
  

  Deborah Parag (HD; 7:24)

  
  

  M.F. Thomas (HD; 11:32)

  
  

  Michael C. Potter (HD; 13:25)

  
  

  Sydney Vollmer (HD; 11:42)

  
  

  Margaret Darling (HD; 8:48)

  
  

  Mitch Bain (HD; 9:30)

  
  

  Adam Stovall (HD; 29:51)

• Frightfest Glasgow 2020 offers an interview and post-film Q & A with Adam Stovall moderated by Alan Jones.

  Interview (HD; 10:51)

  
  

  Post-Film Q & A (HD; 13:46)

• Outtakes (HD; 12:16)


• Theatrical Trailer (HD; 2:25)


• Image Gallery (HD; 2:00)

Additionally, Easter Eggs are advertised on the back cover, and as usual Arrow provides its typically well appointed insert booklet, with cast and crew information, an essay by Craig Ian Mann and an informational page about the transfer.

A Ghost Waits Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A Ghost Waits has a rather unique style, both presentationally and even in at least some of its content, and if the film isn't quite as funny as it might have been, it's provocative in its own way, and Stovall has certainly marshalled his forces well for what was evidently a micro- budgeted feature. Arrow continues to curate "emerging" talent as well as, and arguably better than, many of its competitors in the home video market, and A Ghost Waits offers generally solid technical merits and a nice array of supplements, for those who are considering a purchase. With caveats noted, and especially for those on the lookout for new talent, Recommended.