The Red Circle

Long Good Friday 008: Cerebral Horror

By Ryan Brlecic

1.) Ghost Story, 1981 dir. John Irvin

Ghost Stories are defined by the following characteristics: a piece of fiction or drama, an account of an event, that includes a ghost, or simply the premise that those involved believe the possibility of ghosts and their involvement in the preceding events. From there one can go on to further classify “the ghost story”.

A traditional ghost story is full of the trappings from a romanticized era with a prose style that is characteristic of the gothic tradition. These are favorite of “The Chowder Society” from Peter Straub’s novel Ghost Story and John Irvin’s film of the same name. A group of aging socialites that gather to tell tales of the supernatural as portrayed by similarly aging screen legends like Melvyn Douglas, Fred Astaire, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

The death of his twin brother brings Don Wanderley as played by Craig Wasson into the harmless exploits of his estranged father, a member of aforementioned chowder society. It is only after he gets deeper into the facts about his twin brother’s untimely passing and the connection to a woman from all of their pasts that he begins to unravel their shared ghost story.

Although thought to lack the impact of the novel’s reveal at the end, Irvin’s film version of Ghost Story lives up to it’s namesake. The idea of men competing with their tales of ghost stories reveals a refusal of a definite end and lack of closure’s comfort. When Wasson’s “Don” gives you an outsiders perspective on the group, only then do you begin to realize that they all are trapped inside a bigger story. The theme of running from decisions made in one’s past, like any good traditional ghost story come back to haunt them.

2.) The Others, 2001 dir. Alejandro Amenabar

A psychological ghost story has emphasis that lies in the perceived consciousness of the victim, instead of the actions of the ghost. In The Others, it is the slow descent of madness that Nicole Kidman and her children face that causes them to lose touch with the sanity of the outside world, currently embroiled in uncertainty of world war. Director Amenabar illustrates this by subtly covering the surroundings of their estate with a thick dense fog as the film progresses to mirror their isolation from reality and trap them in their mind’s eye.

Kidman is further trapped by her children and their photo-sensitivity illness. Her character endures, while the world outside grows farther everyday. She lives with the uncertainty of her husband’s return from the front by losing herself in her rules. Further trapping her family with an almost insane set of rules to protect the children from their medical affliction. Making them literally prisoners in their own home. She stops just long enough for the arrival of hired help. It is with the coming of these others that she begins to see the unraveling of her precious rules and with them her life and those of her children.

The Others is a well made meditation on the trappings we put on our everyday lives when we fall prey to our own fears. The way Amenabar uses elements of classic Victorian ghost tale to pepper his study of a woman so consumed by having her life in order only to see it falling apart around her is welcome. Not a huge fan of Ms. Kidman, I have to give her credit for a solid turn in her portrayal of a woman grasping to her sanity in an insane world.

All the above being said this film is also very unconventional in its resolution and definitely worth watching for how its story unfolds. Just keep telling yourself it’s all in your head.

3.) The Sentinel, 1977 dir. Michael Winner

The antiquarian ghost story was birthed from more folklore beginnings and shares close ties with the traditional ghost story. It does away with romanticized prose of the traditional school, favoring realism and gentle escalation of horror. It can be known to involve the disruption of some ancient medieval relic or rite as a catalyst for events. In Michael Winner’s film The Sentinel, based on a novel by Jeffery Knovitz, we follow the story of a young fashion model who slowly watches her life spiral out of control when she takes up residence in an old brownstone.

Winner is of the class of Sam Fuller and Don Siegel. He is a director who has more than a few genuinely good films, but never any real mainstream success. In other words you probably never heard of him. This film was his lone endeavour into the horror genre and to the contrary had a cast packed with familiar Hollywood faces of the time. His style of film-making and the backdrop of New York in the late seventies added a level of authenticity to the piece.

You literally experience the plot with the main character as she moves through her world unaware that it is growing darker. Starting with the rejection of a marriage proposal, she sets out on her own finding herself at the brownstone. There you experience the tenants through her as she goes about her daily life; all played beautifully by character actors of the time.

She comes to entertain their eccentricities and discounts them as harmless as she continues a naive existence. Her off and on fiance’ begins to grow worried when she falls ill frequently and starts hallucinating. Nothing, however, prepares either of them for the secret that the old blind priest on the top floor holds; one that has an answer for her past and her future.

This is solid film with well played out scares. Michael Winner gets a great performance out of the relative newcomer Cristina Raines. Her lack of feature film experience most likely helped her portrayal of a naive women coming into her own whilst unaware she’s being manipulated. Jeff Goldblum, Ava Gardener, Burgess Meredith, Christopher Walken, and TRC favorite Eli Wallach are just some of the people accompanying her in The Sentinel.

TRC Certified Genius

Share