The Ghoul (2017)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Absolutely the worst movie.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This is not a horror film but a complex and dark psychological thriller about a policeman investigating a double murder - or is it all in his imagination? Some reviewers have complained that it is boring but I found it to be a slow yet riveting burn, all the way to it's clever finale. It is well acted & liked the many great shots of London. Certainly not to everybody's taste but to deride this as rubbish is unfair & ignorant.

Gareth Tunley draws top-notch performances from a distinguished cast, while spinning a story about mental illness into the hunt for a double-killer. How he managed it on what is obviously a small budget I have no idea. The word here is quality, from everyone involved.Tom Meeton is a crumpled detective landed with trying to find a double-murderer. A couple have been shot in their own home, but appear to have run towards their assailant, even when shot several times? Why would they do that? Meeton's flawed detective Chris goes undercover to try and find the chief suspect. But as Chris gives a psychiatrist a cover story, only to secretly sift files in her office as he looks for leads, he starts to question his own role in the case. He professes to be an unemployed man who has no life, and when we see him marooned in a poky flat, being brought bottles of vodka by his partner/best friend it seems his cover story is being played by the book.But as his search for the killer takes him to a second doctor, it appears there may be more than one murderer in this beguiling journey into our troubled anti-hero's psyche. This is a low-budget film, but one with considerable talent behind it. The haunting soundtrack by Waen Shepherd is almost a character in its own right, and as Chris struggles to keep his own sanity he appears to be becoming the cover story he has created for the purpose of trapping the killer. Or as an inquisitive party-goer suggests, maybe he is just an ordinary lost man, and the shrinks have made him think he really is a policeman.As he draws closer to his main suspect called Coulson, his quarry turns the tables by suggesting the two shrinks, Drs Fisher and Morland are in fact the guilty parties here, and they are out to steal the mind of an unsuspecting patient as an exercise in psychological body-snatching? Is Coulson mad, or has he in fact stumbled upon the real culprit/s? There are no easy answers to this haunting mystery, but the performance by Meeton in the lead role is one that will stay with you long after the credits, while the rest of the cast never strike a false note.It would be good for once, just once, if the UK's so-called marketeers would pull their fingers out of their backsides and put some muscle into promoting a minor gem like this instead of throwing their weight behind yet another James Bond blockbuster made for $200m. Just a thought, people, just a thought. Go see it. It's well worth the effort.

Dark and confusing story dives into the multidimensional territory of time loops; peppered with a bit of Fight Club & a dash of Taxi Driver. Don't let the title fool you, certainly not horror.I had never heard of this film before and it was rated average-like so I watched it at home & I can't say it was time wasted (I like movies) but I can't sing its praises either. At one point midway through I was so bored that I did consider turning it off but I knew the ending had something in store that, even if not amazing, I felt I should stay on for.The ending will disorient viewers, including myself, and it's quite good. Unfortunately for the ending, the bulk of the rest of the story leading up to it borders on slow torture. A lot of films are great until the final act ruins them; this one is the opposite, with a climax that would have done better attached to a different project.A for effort. 4/10 for my tastes.

Sorry folks, its great to do a project like this film but it kind of falls down flat. I believe a good vision of depression or psychosis must begin by showing us the character in a balanced frame of mind. This should help us perceive what they will eventually lose, giving us a greater understanding of their slow/fast decline from reality into somewhat darker territories. Without that a film like this is just an abstract nightmare for a character we have little connection to. As a consequence of this the film feels a little too abstract but without the depth to carry that abstraction. I like the synopsis, it could be a fine film but it needs some work.Perhaps what would offer this film a better reaction is if it were presented in a different manner. I would do a serious edit, make it into a half hour short and issue it as a piece of art film rather than a feature.