Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Ghost Stories Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson April 23, 2020

It doesn't happen often that a hit play becomes a popular anthology horror film but that happened with Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman's Ghost Stories. Dyson and Nyman, who also co-directed the play they wrote with Sean Holmes, pushed a cautious approach on theatre patrons that Alfred Hitchcock and William Castle would have appreciated. They posted this caveat on signs outside the playhouses where it was performed: “WARNING: Please be advised that Ghost Stories contains moments of extreme shock and tension. The Show is unsuitable for anyone under the age of 15. We strongly advise those of a nervous disposition to think very seriously before attend­ing.” Patrons were also sworn to secrecy and not to reveal key plot points. (Dyson and Nyman did not publish their play until last year.) According to theatre critics Robert Cushman and Jamie Portman, Ghost Stories played in the early 2010s at the Panasonic Theatre in Ontario and Duke of York’s Theatre and received some raves. Patrons reportedly returned to see its performance two or three times.

In adapting it for the screen, Dyson and Nyman have expanded the material by about fifteen minutes. (It was performed in about eighty minutes on stage.) Their stage and film narrative is a triptych with Nyman portraying Philip Goodman, a pro­fessor of parapsychology who interviews three individuals about their spook stories. But Goodman assumes more of a journalistic role à la Citizen Kane's Jerry Thompson and asks some probing questions of his "case studies," who relate their frightening tales in flashback. I found the staging of the first two interviewees not very scary or involving, though they have some cheeky references to '70s and '80s American horror. Tony Matthews (Paul Whitehouse), a night watchman at a derelict mental asylum for women, recounts seeing some demons inside the pitch-black rooms. His flashlight briefly spotlights a little girl in a lemon dress, which made me think she may be a sister or cousin of the Grady daughters in Kubrick's The Shining (1980). It has some of the atmosphere of The Haunting (both cinematic versions) but it teases the audience a little too much with a couple jump scares. In the second segment, Simon Rifkind (Alex Lawther), a semi-androgynous teenager home alone, describes to Goodman the time he borrowed his parents' car (without a license) and encountered a beast in the forest. The red door to the Rifkind house made me think of the doorway to Freddy's house on 1428 Elm Street. Cinematographer Ole Bratt Birkeland frames Simon at a low angle driving with pure blackness in the rear seat, a nod to Halloween (1978) and the way Dean Cundey frames Annie in the driver's seat as Michael waits in the back make his move. But aside from these clever homages, the first two episodes are less than the sum of their parts.

Rude awakening.

It's in the third part where Ghost Stories finds its own true identity and literally opens more doors that are hidden behind others as it segues into the highly imaginative fourth act. Mike Priddle (Martin Freeman), an ex-banker, is out in the field talking to Goodman as he game hunts. He recollects the disturbing discovery of a poltergeist in his infant's crib. The movie takes a shocking turn and then flips it into something far more exploratory and provocative than its average first two episodes.

Ghost Stories Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shout! Factory, in tandem with IFC Midnight, have released Ghost Stories using the MPEG-4 AVC encode on a BD-50 but it's more like a BD-25 since the actual disc is only 27.85 GB. It appears in its original theatrical exhibition ratio of 2.40:1. Much of the picture is very dark and dreary. Black levels are deep and contrast is solid. There's some low-level noise visible when a flashlight illumines the darker spaces. Birkeland inserts spare fill light in a number of the most darkened shots (e.g., see Screenshot #s 3 and 10). He also dons half light on faces (e.g., see #11). The opening reel contains some Super 8mm footage that has intentional grain and artifacts placed in the frame to give it a home movie aesthetic (see #19). Shout! has encoded the feature at an average video bitrate of 29996 kbps.

Twelve scene selections for the 98-minute feature can be accessed through the popup menu or via remote activation.

Ghost Stories Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout! supplies a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround track (2749 kbps, 24-bit) and a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo downmix (1655 kbps, 24-bit). Dialogue is audible throughout but pitch levels vary depending on camera distance and proximity to characters. Jump scares, booms, bangs, and thuds reverberate on the surrounds. Haim Frank Ilfman's score meshes well with the movie's sound design.

Shout! gives us optional English SDH and alternatively, Spanish subtitles, for the feature.

Ghost Stories Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Ghost Stories Trailer (2:02, 1080p) - an anamorphic widescreen trailer that was put together after the film had exposure at some festivals and premieres. (It's interlaced with critical quotations.)

Bonus trailers for The Housemaid (1:34, 1080p), Wildling (2:17, 1080p), and Pyewacket (1:40, 1080p) load after the disc's insertion.

Ghost Stories Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ghost Stories derives its roots from the Amicus portmanteau films from the 1960s, in particular Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965) and Dead of Night (1945). It was a pretty mediocre anthology film until the third case study and the scenery-changing fourth act. I'm generally pleased with how Shout! treated the visuals in transferring it to high-def and a pretty workmanlike 5.1 mix. If you're craving extras, the UK Region B from Lionsgate has an audio commentary with the two directors and four featurettes. The no-frills edition from Shout! still earns a SOLID RECOMMENDATION.