Ghost Story (1981)

Admirable film.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Let's put aside for another review the broader issue of how successful Hollywood has been adapting Straub's work, generally. Because in case of this work, specifically, they pretty much knocked it out of the park. This film is genuinely creepy and this reviewer can list on the fingers of one hand (maybe two) the number of times a so-called "horror" film had got under my skin (the original Exorcist, the original Living Dead, the original Hill House, come to mind). This film made that list. Next is the casting. I am going to give credit to John Irvin for (presumably) saying, this is a film about a bunch of old guys but I don't want to get just any old guys, let's get the best-known bunch of old guys money can buy... Wow -- Fred Astair, Douglas Fairbanks, I mean, does it get any better than this? Finally, this is the film that introduced the mass audiences to Alice Krige, a very capable actress whose work has been keeping us glued to our seats for decades since (Borg Queen, anyone?). The IMDb rating, as always, is much too low. A true classic, bringing together many unusual features in one production.

Somewhere along the way, you have to at least watch a movie that stars veteran actors like Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. They were all, of course, rather elderly when this was made, but certainly not over the hill and, if lacking a little bit in energy, they all made up for that with screen presence, and brought an overall feeling of credibility to a movie whose story I found to be somewhat lacking. The four, along with John Houseman (who also directed) made up what they called the "Chowder Society." They had been meeting together for half a century, meetings that apparently revolved (for some reason) around the old men telling ghost stories to each other in darkened rooms. Suddenly, into their midst comes a real life ghost story, revolving around a deep, dark and tragic secret that the men had managed to keep to themselves for that half century, but which now was threatening to take their lives as their past comes back to haunt them.Eventually, the story becomes essentially a flashback move as we trace the tragic events that happened fifty years before, revolving around the relationship the four developed with a young woman named Eva (Alice Krige) and with the young woman's death, and its cover-up by the four. Krige was fine in the role of Eva - a seductress who led the boys on. Be warned that she has a number of nude scenes, so if that sort of thing isn't to your liking, then this movie will not be for you. Krige pulled off the necessary mysterious (and perhaps even vaguely creepy) personality of Eva quite well - in the "modern" scenes, she is, after all, playing a ghost! I wondered a bit about the character, though. Why return at exactly that moment? I wasn't especially clear on that. And why "recruit" the ex-psychiatric patient, whose role in Eva's plan wasn't entirely clear to me? I finished this with a number of questions about plot points that didn't seem to make a lot of sense.Personally, I didn't find this to be an especially frightening movie, nor was it something that really held me enthralled. It's certainly not one that I would consider classic horror, or even a classic ghost movie. To me, it's more of a curiosity because of the bringing together of the veteran cast, but the story overall was a disappointment. (3/10)

Hello everyone, I don't remember seeing this movie ever coming out at the theaters, but I was only 9 years old at the time. The first time I saw this movie was on TV and after I watched it I had to buy it. I thought it was a great horror story without all the gore. It had a great cast with a few of the classic actor's as the Chowder Society. I don't know what it is about revenge movie's but some make great movies that are hard to stay away from.This is not you typical horror flick, in fact it has a plot. I liked the fact how the story was told, it takes place somewhere in the northeast, with beautiful Winter scenery. The Chowder Society, getting together in their 70's and telling spooky stories. They never discuss don't discuss what happened in the thirties until, Don finds them. After the death of his brother and father from the hand's of this woman, he know's is not who she appears to be.Don finds the rest of the Chowder Society were his father was once a member and tells them he thinks this is a ghost story and the woman is back for revenge. He explains what has happened when he met her and the story begins to unfold, with more of the Chowder Society meeting their fates with Alma Moberley, the woman back for her revenge.The truth eventually comes out, with the story going back to the times where the Chodwer Society was in their prime. We discover who they were and what the did so wrong to Alma. To save the last remaining member of the Chowder Society. Don with the help of Fred Astaire's character begin to unravel the mystery and unlock the crime they were responsible for back in the 1930's.This movie is a great thrill without all the blood and guts that come with some horror stories. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone under age ten though, but it is still a great story. It's a great movie to rent and one that you can watch over and over again, especially around Fall/Halloween.

Four life-long friends share a terrible secret, one which returns to haunt them in their old-age. When one of the elderly men, Edward Charles Wanderley, inexplicably throws himself off a bridge and his eldest son David (Craig Wasson) suffers a fatal fall from his high-rise apartment, Edward's youngest son Don (Craig Wasson again) suspects that his mysterious lover Alma Mobley (Alice Krige) may be the cause of the deaths.Based on the bestselling novel by Peter Straub, this big-budget supernatural tale boasts a great cast, excellent production values, superb cinematography, and impressive 'make-up illusions' from Oscar-winner Dick Smith, and yet even though it's a class act, Ghost Story simply doesn't work as well as it might have: in the process of adapting the book for the screen, the original story has been severely truncated to fit into the 110 minute running time with the result being a very muddled movie. Subplots are left woefully underdeveloped, and the script leaves more than a few questions unanswered (see IMDb's FAQ for more details).That's not to say that Ghost Story is a totally worthless experience: the acting is solid, with Krige in particular making an impression as the alluring yet creepy Alma/Eva (plus she gets her kit off quite a bit); there are some effective jump scares (helped no end by Dick Smith's putrescent Eva corpse); and the whole affair has a wonderful chilling atmosphere, helped considerably by its wintry New England setting.