Ghost Story Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.5
Overall		4.0

Ghost Story Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 8, 2021

The United States copyright office has this interesting disclaimer on its site:

Copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases. However, copyright protection may be available for logo artwork that contains sufficient authorship. In some circumstances, an artistic logo may also be protected as a trademark.

Similarly, the United Kingdom's own copyright office contains this briefer summary:

Copyright does not protect individual names, titles or phrases.

These snippets of international copyright law are offered in case anyone came to this film expecting Ghost Story, probably the better remembered film bearing this title, which came out some seven years after the film currently under review (note that the link points to a Region A release, since I reviewed that one). Somewhat interestingly, though, this particular Ghost Story was co-written, produced and directed by Stephen Weeks, who also managed to have another title of a film of his "recycled" years later, and again most likely more famously, though in this case while Weeks, in a supplement included on this disc, states that "his" 1917 was his first feature, it was actually evidently a short. There's one more piece of "meta" data and/or irrelevant trivia (depending on your point of view) with regard to this Ghost Story, and that involves a film that came out about as long after that "other" Ghost Story came after this particular Ghost Story, namely 1987's Withnail and I. Those familiar with its story may recall that is focused on two out of work actors who journey to a remote country house, and fans who are cognizant of the backstory of the film and its writer and director Bruce Robinson may know Robinson based the character of Withnail on his friend, actor Vivian MacKerrell. MacKerrell turns up in Ghost Story as one of two characters who, yep, you guessed it, journey to a remote country house.

Those two characters are Talbot (Larry Dann) and Duller (Vivian MacKerrell), who have been invited to a country estate by its owner, McFayden (Murray Melvin), who went to college with both men. Talbot is a kind of nerd who can't figure out why he's been invited, since he was never part of any "in crowd", and feels he doesn't belong. Duller on the other hand is a kind of privileged preppy type, and almost from the get go there are manifest personality clashes on display, albeit some of them in a typically British spate of passive aggression.

Since Talbot is the kind of guy used to being the butt of jokes, he almost thinks that some "visions" he starts experiencing are some kind of elaborate prank, but instead he seems to be time traveling back to witness the plight of a former resident of the mansion, a woman named Sophy (Marianne Faithfull, whose presence almost guarantees a cult audience for the film). Ghost Story may indeed document things that go bump in the night, but it actually achieves a lot of its discomfiting mood simply from the interactions between the present day characters.

Interestingly, as is disclosed in some of the supplements, the film was perhaps surprisingly not shot in England for the most part, but in India, due to circumstances that Weeks doles out in the pretty exhaustive making of featurette and the included commentary track. Despite being shot in an erstwhile colony, there is a definitely British feeling to not just the production design elements, but also the kind of unstated class consciousness of some of the characters, and the spooky quasi-Gothic ambience of the perhaps haunted estate itself.

Ghost Story Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Ghost Story is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Nucleus Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. There's very little technical information included on the packaging, other than a generic statement that this "has been beautifully restored. . .for this high definition world premiere!" Nucleus' website gives a dollop more of information by stating this offers a "New HD transfer from original film elements", though what those elements may be is not disclosed. This is a nicely organic looking transfer for the most part, even if things tend to look slightly filtered at times, so that there can be parts of any given frame that don't seem to have the same grain field as other parts of the frame. The color timing seemed a little wonky to me, tending to push flesh tones toward a kind of oily green-yellow color. The outdoor material understandably pops a good deal better than some of the dimly lit interior material, and in fact a few isolated indoor shots can be fairly hard to make out. There is noticeable but typically minor damage on display throughout, with some dirt, blemishes, nicks and scratches showing up at times.

Ghost Story Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Ghost Story features a nice sounding LPCM 2.0 Mono track that offers a nice, full bodied rendering of the interesting score by Ron Geesin. Dialogue and effects are rendered cleanly and clearly throughout the presentation, and I noticed no issues whatsoever in terms of any kind of major damage, distortion or dropouts.

Ghost Story Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Ghost Stories - The Curious Tales of the Making of Ghost Story (HD; 1:12:29) is a really well done overview that has a ton of great interviews and a glut of background information on the production.


• Theatrical Trailer (HD; 4:31)


• Alternate Credits (HD; 1:45) offer the substitute title Madhouse Mansion.


• Gallery (HD; 1:51) scrolls horizontally and fairly quickly, so have the Pause button on your remote handy if you want to linger on any given image.


• The Bengal Lancers! (HD; 34:02) is subtitled "scenes from a non-existent movie". Subsequent text info discloses that Stephen Weeks began shooting a film in 1984 with Michael York, Miles O'Keeffe, Trevor Howard, and Christopher Lee, with an impressive crew assembled as well, that succumbed to some insurance fraud and was never completed. This looks like it was sourced from some problematic video. Part of this has a quasi-commentary by Weeks.


• Gawain and the Green Knight (HD; 8:22) features a sequence shot as a test for Weeks' film.


• B&W Commercials Reel (HD; 7:49) documents some of Weeks' early work.


• The Chelsea Cobbler (HD; 00:47) is a color commercial by Weeks.


• Short Films

  Owen's War (1965) (HD; 4:58)

  
  

  The Camp (1965) (HD; 4:36)

  
  

  Deserted Station (1965) (HD; 5:44)

  
  

  Moods of a Victorian Church (1967) (HD; 9:58)

  
  

  Flesh (1967) (HD; 2:48)

  
  

  Two at Thursday (1968) (HD; 10:42)

  
  

  1917 (1968) (HD; 34:12)



• Commentary features Sam Umland with Stephen Weeks in a track recorded in 2005. This is accessible under the Audio menu.

Ghost Story Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ghost Story is frankly a bit of a slog for its first third to a half, albeit a slog enlivened by some fun, bitchy dialogue, but once the pieces are in place, things pick up accordingly, and if the film isn't all that scary, it's a little unsettling, maybe especially for anyone who's ever been picked on by those supposedly better positioned in life. Technical merits are generally solid, and the supplementary package outstanding. Recommended.