A Ghost Story Review (spoiler alert)

“Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting.” Virginia Woolf,  A Haunted House

A few minutes into David Lowery’s A Ghost Story, couple C (Casey Affleck) and M (Rooney Mara) are woken in the early hours by a loud crash coming from the living-room of their one-storey, middle-of-nowhere house. They go to investigate and find….. nothing. So begins a circular, peculiar story that moves back and forth through time.

C dies on what could be the next morning, or the next month, we don’t know, because time is weirdly elastic in this film. C, dressed in a child’s notion of a Halloween ghost, rises from his mortuary gurney and returns to the house he shares with M. He observes M grieve, meet a new man and eventually move out. He meets another bed-sheeted ghost, who’s haunting the house opposite while they wait for someone, but can’t remember who.

Long after M has left the house, C continues to haunt it and it’s could be previous or could be following tenants. Even after the house is demolished and replaced with a luxury office block, and is surrounded by a neon city-scape, he stays there.

 On the surface, the premise of this film is silly and a bit pretentious. Who wants to spend a couple of hours watching Casey Affleck wandering around draped in a bed-sheet?

To me this was a film about two things. 1) Our place in the world and the meaningless of our existence in the grand scheme of things and 2) The nature of what we perceive as endings.

While C can wander back and forth through time, he is perpetually stuck in the place he can’t explain his attachment to, even when he’s alive and M is asking him if they can move to the city. When M asks C why his pull to the house is so strong, he says, ‘I don’t know. History?’  We see some fragments of his home’s sometimes awful history as C time travels to the years before the house was built.

We can project our own feelings onto C – our fears that we’re going to die and be forgotten, that we’ll die without ever doing all the things we had planned to do, that we’re running out of time, that the time we have left seems to be moving forward at an alarmingly accelerated pace. M’s fear manifests itself in her habit of leaving little notes hidden in all the places she lives, explaining that if she ever goes back, she’ll find a piece of herself there waiting. The note she leaves in the house she shares with C is what keeps him stuck there, and is key to his eventual moving on.

 There’s strong chemistry between Affleck and Mara and they convince as an on-screen couple. There’s one scene where we watch them from above, as they lie in bed and kiss, which feels kind of  voyeuristic. This scene ties in well when we later learn that C has also been watching all the time, could have been there with us at that moment too. We are also allowed to observe the couple’s relationship as it starts to crumble under the weight of their different expectations.

Rooney Mara (M) and Casey Affleck (C)

There are moments where good old haunted house tropes are used – flickering lights, books flying off shelves, cupboard doors being flung open, doors being slammed shut. I think this was probably because C was doing what he thought a ghost should be doing when they’re haunting houses; these moments seemed to come when he was upset or distressed (like when he sees M kissing her new boyfriend.) But because time is so oddly fluid in this film, he can’t even make the poltergeist style activity happen when he wants it to – the books fly the shelves too late to scare off M’s new boyfriend.

I found the idea of M perpetually haunting a place he can’t escape from overwhelmingly sad, but it’s a theme that’s at the core of this film; our refusal to let go of things, people, places, meaningless stuff, and memories. It’s also about what happens after we die, to those that we leave behind. Everything else just goes on, without you, until they end, too.

I am not an aspect ratio / camera technique buff, so I am not going to use any technical terms here. The film is shot in a way that makes it look like an old home movie, or Polaroid photo – the kind of effect that we’d use filters on phones to achieve. Because the story is told from C’s point of view, we can only really see what he can see, or how he’d see it. It’s beautifully shot, though, with long distance tracking shots and loooong one-take static shots (there’s a pie-eating scene that feels a bit like one of those extended Family Guy jokes -  I’m pretty sure it’s going to divide audiences into ‘I get this’ and ‘what the fuck am I watching?’)

The music is just brilliant, and really fits the mood of the whole film – it’s atmospheric, creepy, sad and at times uplifting.  

A Ghost Story isn’t going to be everyone’s thing at all. If you’re expecting a straight up chilly ghost story, you’ll be disappointed. If you like your films a little bit weird and a little bit unsettling, but ultimately thought-provoking, it will be for you.

Kind of wish I hadn’t watched it on my birthday, though.

Score: 3.5/5 (I’ve moved off a /10 rating!)

Dishonourable mention: Casey Affleck’s legal troubles. Don’t think about that too much, or it will spoil this film for you. 

It 2017 review and comparison (contains spoilers)

THERE's TWO THINGS that I’m going to have to mention reviewing this film. The first is the 1986 Stephen King mega-novel and the second is the 1990 mini-series adaptation, both of the same name.

I read the book 15+ years ago, so there won’t be many comparisons to that here. After seeing the 2017 remake, I dug out my copy of the mini-series and it’s on as I write this. For the rest of the review, I’ll refer to the new film as It 2017 and the mini-series as It 1990.

There follows a brief plot synopsis:

All three versions are set in Derry, Maine. Stephen King fans will be very familiar with Derry (and the fictional town of Castle Rock) as these are two places that appear over and over again in his work.

A group of young teenage misfits, calling themselves ‘The Loser Club’ have to band together to defeat a fear-eating supernatural entity whose favourite visual representation in the real world is that of Pennywise the dancing clown, who has a mouthful of supernumerary razor sharp teeth. Here's the thing, though...the entity can manifest itself as anything at all, anything that you’re frightened of.

The Loser Club

The Losers Club: Eddie, Bill, Mike, Stan, Ben, Beverly and Richie

Bill : is struggling to get over his guilt over the death of his little brother Georgie. He let Georgie go out and play by himself when he was supposed to be looking after him. His obsession with finding out what happened to Georgie alienates him from his father, who cannot hide his anger and disappointment towards Bill. In the 1990 version, we meet his mother. She does not appear in the 2017 version.

Ben :  is new to town. He’s fat (though not really by 2017’s standards) he’s fascinated by local history and it’s him that’s worked out something really bad happens in the town every 27 years. We don’t know too much about his home life.

Richie: is the comedian of the group, and provides light relief. He also does a marvellous line in filthy jokes. Again, we don’t know too much about his home life and have to assume that his parents are often absent and/or neglectful.

Eddie: is an asthmatic germophobe with a controlling mother. He’s often very anxious and easily wound up. His mother is morbidly obese and spends the day watching television game shows.

Stan: is the voice of reason. We don’t actually see too much of Stan’s backstory, other than his bar mitzvah is coming up and he hasn’t studied for it. Oh, and he’s haunted by a painting of a faceless flute player.

Mike: is an orphan in this version (not in the 1990 one) He’s black, so that automatically outcasts him and makes him the focus of negative attention from Henry Bowers and his sidekicks. He works for the family meatpacking business, a job he struggles with because he can’t bear to slaughter the animals.

Beverly:  is the only girl in the group. She is  the victim off false rumours about her promiscuity. Her dad is sexually abusive, and this is made far more explicit here than it is in 1990 version.

The 1990 version begins with Mike realising that ‘It’ has returned to Derry after a young girl goes missing. Mike phones Bill, and we have a fade-out flashback flash-back to what happened to Georgie in the summer of 1960.

Each version handles Georgie’s death very differently, though what actually happens is identical. The paper boat Georgie and Bill make together is swept into a storm drain. Waiting in the drain is Pennywise. It 1990 gets this scene out of the way quickly – it’s there purely to introduce Pennywise to the audience. It’s also oddly accompanied with weirdly jolly plinky-plonky music. It 2017 spends much longer setting up, firstly in establishing the sweet, close relationship between the two brothers and secondly in holding tension for what’s to come next. We know what’s going to happen to Georgie, and when it does, it’s brutal. His interaction with Pennywise is much longer, and it feels much, much more uncomfortable; Pennywise has water running in and out of his mouth. And he just…lets it run. He doesn’t wipe his mouth or lick his lips. I found that more unsettling than his bright, bright blue eyes. This is an alpha predator on the hunt and his focus on getting Georgie is absolute.

'Hiya Georgie!'

Pennywise is played by Swedish actor Bill Skarsgård, and he’s pretty fucking scary. He has a child-like quality to him, but because he’s obviously very tall, his physicality, the sheer size of him over that of the kids alone, makes him frightening. The way he moves is freaky; his slightly off-kilter eyes are freaky; his sly little smile is freaky; even his grubby, Victorian vaudeville era costume is damned creepy.

Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise

It 2017 dispenses with the adult sections of the narrative altogether, staying with the children first in  the autumn of 1988 when Georgie dies, and then in the summer 1989,  instead of time hopping back and forth like the novel and It 1990 does. This is actually a pretty good way to handle the bloated source material because it nicely lines up part two, and means that this part of the story can fully focus on the kids and their lives in 1989.

The child actors in It 2017 are all superb, and totally believable. There is not one dud performance (and it does feel mean to slate a kid’s acting) Richie, Eddie and Ben provide the comic relief from what would otherwise be a relentless misery fest. And they talk like kids really do; they swear, they take the piss, they tell sexually explicit jokes. Their friendship feels very real. The only girl in the group Beverly, seems older, taller, bigger and more mature than the boys and that’s because in real life, she would be. We first meet 2017 Beverly hiding (unsuccessfully) in the loos from the school bullies. Beverly is actually one of the most complex, and well-drawn characters in this film. She has an utterly miserable home life, but her ‘public’ face is one of sass and bravado.

Each child is facing their own personal fear (and this is what Pennywise manifests as) Beating demons is a reoccurring theme in King’s work. IT 2017 knows this, and puts this theme at the heart of the film. This actually ties in nicely with the coming of age feel that the film also has, and the idea that our childhood fears may always haunt us. I read, watched and listened to other reviews, and it didn’t surprise me to hear comparisons of It 2017 to films like The Goonies and that isn't a bad thing at all. There is an element of adventure to this film too, and it doesn't feel out of place. 

Like with a lot of King’s novels, there are plenty of Easter eggs to be found. Eddie wears a t-shirt that has a picture of a car with eyes and teeth on it (Christine), Beverly’s bathroom scene recalls both Carrie and The Shining. The actor playing vile bully Henry Bowers has more than a passing resemblance to the late River Phoenix, who starred in another Stephen King adaptation, Stand By Me. One of the boys calls Beverly ‘Molly Ringwald’ which is funny because she looks just like 80’s Molly Ringwald (though that joke went over ¾ of the audience’s heads in my showing.) When TVs are playing in the background in scenes, you can hear the audio talk about playing in sewers with clowns. A cinema is showing A Nightmare on Elm Street 5.

 The ‘deadlights’ from the novel don’t appear until the end of the film, but I was so pleased they did. In the car on the way home, I said to my friend, ‘they did the deadlights!! THE DEADLIGHTS!!!’

Eddie's Christine inspired t-shirt

With the exception of Tim Curry's performance as Pennywise, IT 2017 is superior to IT 1990 in pretty much every way. It’s unnecessary to compare Curry and Skarsgård, because they are both so different and frightening in their own ways. That said I do prefer Skarsgård’s interpretation.

 Not one scene is wasted and each one contributes to keeping the plot moving along nicely. You can’t root for characters you don’t care about, but we feel like we’re part of the Loser Club, so we root for them every step of the way. There are moments in this film that are heart-breaking – Bill’s confrontation with his dad in the garage feels so painfully real, it kind of hurts to watch. That said, the film is also actually very, very funny with a good few laugh out loud moments.

For those of us that came of age in the early 1990s, this film will feel especially nostalgic – we can remember the late 80’s elements of the film – the faulty Casio calculator watch that goes off at weird times, the huge unflattering NHS style glasses, shell suits, analogue TV, beat em’ up arcade games – and we can also remember the first time we watched It 1990.

My only issue with the film was the amount of CGI used. It’s all pretty seamless, so it’s not an issue with quality, but more that some of the scenes were scary enough without all the extra bows and there were some genuine ‘hide behind you hands’ frights.  I went for dinner after the film, and walking alone up two flights of stairs to the restaurant toilets spooked me. And that to me is when a scary film has done its job well. When I’m thinking about it the next day, and well into the next week. 

Scores on the doors:

9/10. 

Dishonourable mention:

That scene from the book is cut from both screen adaptations and thank fuck it is. It’s way too twisted, even for me. Don’t know what scene I mean? Read the book, friends. Read the book.