Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.5

Ghost Story Blu-ray Movie Review

Things that go bump in the night. And day.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 11, 2015

Do you believe in ghosts? If you do, would you then willingly join a group whose sole reason for existence is to sit around telling scary ghost stories? That’s one small but perhaps salient bit of illogic in Ghost Story, a film which never really caught on during its original release back in 1981, but which has since attained a certain cult status, not only due to its spooky and at times rather hallucinatory demeanor, but also due to the fact that it offered late career roles to a number of one time A-listers, including Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas (who died shortly before the film’s release), John Houseman and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. The film was culled from a bestselling novel by Peter Straub, but as one of the really interesting featurettes included on this new Blu-ray mentions, huge swaths of Straub’s book were jettisoned in a fitful attempt to winnow the story down to something that would not take hours and hours of viewing time. As is also mentioned in this featurette, the book probably would have made a better miniseries, at least if adapters had tried to include more of Straub’s kaleidoscopic interweavings of various characters and frightening episodes taking place in the supposedly quaint village of Milburn, New York. Instead screenwriter Lawrence D. Cohen approached Straub’s overstuffed tale with an idea that there were certain “non negotiable” story elements which needed to be included. That redacting process meant that Straub’s original book, which really might have been more accurately entitled Ghost Stories, became more centrally focused on four elders in Milburn who do indeed meet to share ghost stories in an aggregation they perhaps whimsically have called The Chowder Society. Unfortunately for all four men, telling stories about ghosts is not their only interaction with spectral beings, and as is detailed fairly early in the film, all four are being haunted at least in their dream states.

Those elderly gentlemen are quickly introduced in a quasi-montage that shows all of their slumbers being interrupted by obviously very bad dreams, before what seems to be a waking dream itself unfolds on the screen. A young man is in a high rise apartment, evidently a bit confused as to how he got there and who exactly is the woman sharing his bed. When he pokes and prods the still woman, she’s revealed to be a rather horrifying corpse. That sends the man hurtling backwards through a plate glass window where he falls to his death. That in turn leads to what appears to be the same guy waking up, as if from a bad dream. Except that he isn’t—the guy waking is the dead man’s brother, and he’s being informed of his sibling’s demise. Even before this somewhat confounding sequence which blurs the line between “reality” and dreaming, pay attention to how the scene actually begins, specifically with regard to the bath water that’s briefly shown. It’s a weird, hallucinatory sequence, and despite the fact it probably unwisely features star Craig Wasson in full frontal mode as he plummets to the ground (a choice made especially odd since he’s clearly seen wearing a towel up to and including the moment he goes through the window), it gives Ghost Story a really discomfiting ambience from the get go.

The young man who is perhaps (perhaps not) awakened from a dream or maybe a vision of his brother’s death is named Don Wanderley (Craig Wasson), and it turns out he’s the son of one of the four members of the Chowder Society, a no nonsense type named Edward Charles Wanderley (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.). The other Chowder-heads are Dr. John Jaffrey (Melvyn Douglas), Sears James (John Houseman) and Ricky Hawthorne (Fred Astaire). These elders seemingly delight in sitting around candlelit rooms and scaring the pants off each other with tales like that of a man being buried alive. However, it’s more than apparent that there’s a bit of subtext and history going on, and that the quartet may have some unresolved business in their background.

When Edward dies under circumstances suspiciously similar to the demise of his son, Don becomes convinced the Chowder Society is the key to both deaths. (Ghost Story perhaps makes a misstep by overtly showing the spectral entity that leads to both of the Wanderleys’ deaths, so the viewer at least is already aware that there’s something nefarious going on, even if some bystanders and outright participants aren’t, or at least pretend not to be.) In order for Don to finagle his way into the Chowder Society, the “entrance fee” is a ghost story, and his tale is from his own history, as he recounts a story of an enigmatic woman named Alma (Alice Krige) with whom he falls in love, only to leave her when her oddness becomes more than he can handle. Later, he finds out that his brother David has taken up with Alma, and Don is convinced that Alma is behind David’s untimely death.

When yet another death ensues, Ghost Story finally travels back several decades to detail some college age shenanigans on the part of the then young guys who would later form the Chowder Society. In a not very surprising development, an enigmatic young woman named Eva (Alice Krige) is at the center of the story, and her fate turns out to be the fulcrum around which all of the previous plot mechanics have hinged.

Ghost Story is strong on mood, though its literal depiction of the titular wraith deprives the film of any ambiguity. There’s no doubt that there is a ghost, and there’s really not much question who and/or what the ghost is, leaving the way that person got to be a spirit as the only real mystery in the piece. What’s interesting about Ghost Story is its kind of ruminative approach toward mortality. Many folks probably saw the title of the film as a literal and none too imaginative moniker. There’s an at least arguable point to be made that the real ghosts here are the memories of their younger selves that the four elders of the Chowder Society retain and in fact are haunted by.

Ghost Story Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Ghost Story is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Elements are in generally very good to excellent condition, though eagle eyed viewers will be able to spot occasional minor anomalies in the form of dirt and scratches and the like (look just below Krige's left cheekbone in the second screenshot accompanying this review for a typical example). The palette has weathered the intervening decades rather well, and while a lot of the film is intentionally autumnal (or even downright wintry), things like fleshtones look natural and some of the more gruesome hues of things like rotting corpses still pop with quite a bit of immediacy. Detail is very good to excellent in close-ups, though some midrange shots are softer looking. Some of the dimly lit scenes, like the red infused room where the Chowder Society tells its first ghost story, offer decent shadow detail if overall lesser degrees of fine detail. The film has a number of optical effects, and those bring with them the customary uptick in grain, softness and dirt. Grain looks nicely organic and encounters no resolution problems throughout the presentation.

Ghost Story Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Ghost Story features a fine sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track. Dialogue and effects are rendered cleanly and clearly, and the wonderfully atmospheric score by Philippe Sarde sounds excellent, if just a trifle bright at times. Fidelity is excellent and dynamic range fairly wide, especially when considering some of the more hyperbolic moments.

Ghost Story Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Ghost Story Genesis (1080p; 39:42) features author Peter Straub, who reads several passages from the original book and comments briefly on some aspects of the film.


• Ghost Story Development (1080p; 29:09) gets into the nuts and bolts of the adaptive process and features a number of well done interview segments.


• Alice Krige: Being Alma and Eva (1080p; 28:52) is a fun and interesting sit down with the actress.


• Albert Whitlock Visual Effects with Bill Taylor (1080p; 28:51) is a really interesting piece on the film's VFX.


• Theatrical Trailer (480i; 2:26)


• TV Spot (480i; 00:31)


• Radio Spots (1:00)


• Photo Gallery (1080p; 8:03)


• Audio Commentary by Director John C. Irvin is a very interesting and informative, if fairly low key, discussion. Irvin offers appealing anecdotes about some of the aspects of the shoot, including working with such iconic actors.

Ghost Story Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A superb cast helps Ghost Story navigate a plot that has perhaps been too severely condensed from Straub's original to gain substantial traction. The film is still rather moody and has a couple of good scares, though this is less of a traditional horror film and more of a psychological character study. Technical merits are generally excellent and Scream Factory has once again assembled a sterling collection of supplements. Highly recommended.