I’ve always been envious of the British tradition of sharing ghost stories around Christmastime and lament that America never took up the custom as well. I guess that in the states ghostly happenings got regulated to the Halloween holiday so that Christmas could focus on truly frightening things like family dysfunction, rampant consumerism and celebrating Santa’s penchant for home break-ins and animal enslavement. The fact is (hey, I googled it) Christmas, much like Halloween has Celtic origins and both hinge on the belief that on specific days the veil between the living and the dead is especially flimsy. So why don’t we kick that snitching elf right off the shelf and focus on the chillier side of the holiday season? Here are five ghostly movies that you should check out if you haven’t…
1989’s aptly titled THE FORGOTTEN ONE is a haunter that somehow slipped through the cracks even though it boasts an impressive rock solid performance from horror royalty Terry (the 1987 classic THE STEPFATHER, 1988's hidden gem PIN) O’Quinn. Mourning his recently deceased wife, author Bob Anderson (O’Quinn) moves into a lovely Victorian house and slowly becomes dreadfully aware that the joint already has an inhabitant in the form of a voluptuous ghost (THE HOWLING's vixen Elisabeth Brooks) with an ample grudge. Skeptical love interest/neighbor Barbara (the always welcome Kristy McNichol of WHITE DOG ('82) and DREAM LOVER ('86)) tries her best to be supportive (ya gotta love a gal that helps you dispose of a corpse) but soon fears her potential beau has flipped his lid. Things get a bit convoluted in the climax thanks to time traveling doppelgängers and I certainly could have done without a superfluous depiction of a kitten’s death (c’mon, man! I'm trying to relax here! ) but the initial build up is surprisingly creepy (in fact, early encounters with the spirit are genuinely unnerving) and the three central performances are worth it alone.
In THE SKEPTIC (2009) Tim Daly (of the excellent Stephen King miniseries STORM OF THE CENTURY) plays Bryan Becket, the title skeptic who inherits a most impressive old house from an Aunt who has kicked the bucket. Bryan is a grounded, rational lawyer who is proud of the fact that he believes in nothing. You won't be surprised to learn that he ends up having to reevaluate his worldview when once in the house he experiences what appears to be ghostly phenomenon. An eccentric psychic named Cassie (Zoe Saldana of 2014’s ROSEMARY’S BABY remake) convinces Bryan to let her stay in the place too and together they learn that it's Bryan himself who is haunted by a dark past (Full review HERE).
Directed by Lewis Gilbert (who I’m indebted to for 1983’s EDUCATING RITA) and based on a book by James Herbert (who I’m indebted to for 1982’s DEADLY EYES and its army of dachshunds dressed as rats) 1995’s THE HAUNTED features Aidan Quinn ( shout out to 84's RECKLESS) as professor David Ash who lives to debunk the paranormal funk and is notorious for pointing out the strings that make phony baloney ghosties float. That is until one day when he is persuaded to travel to a palatial estate to prove the joint’s weird occurrences are likely more the result of a frantic nanny’s senility than anything otherworldly. There he meets pretty Christina (Kate Beckinsale of the UNDERWORLD franchise) who clearly has a thing for him and her two eccentric brothers (Anthony Andrews & Alex Lowe) who clearly don’t. We’re surely in familiar territory for most of the film’s runtime (that’s not necessarily a bad thing) but there’s a few tricks up this flick’s sleeve than one might guess. Its fiery conclusion, though no longer the shocking revelation it once was, is still a rug pull that lingers in the mind.
Hey, I was just talking about 2000’s spooker BELIEVE (over HERE) and now I am singing it’s praises once again. This meek yet affable PG rated adolescent ghost tale may not provide the most frightening scares but it’s well shot, well meaning and it consistently entertains. It’s sorta like Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys meet THE LADY IN WHITE (1988) and it features two of my favorite Canadians HOUSE OF WAX’s Elisha Cuthburt and the legendary Andrea Martin of BLACK CHRISTMAS (’74) fame.
1944’s CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE is well honored classic and hardly underrated but I’m going to include it here because I don’t see it mentioned enough when discussing supernatural Christmas films. Audiences expecting more of the same in this sequel to Jacques Tourneur’s psychosexual CAT PEOPLE (’42) were in for a bit of a surprise as rather than featuring feline transformations it centers on Amy (Ann Carter) the young daughter of the first film’s surviving couple (Kent Smith (also excellent in 46's THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE and Jane Randolph) who befriends the ghost of her father’s troubled first wife Irena (Simone Simon), much to her parents chagrin. The debut film directed by the great Robert Wise (who delivered arguably the greatest haunted house movie of all time, 1963’s THE HAUNTING), this thoughtful rumination on the plights and terrors of childhood is pure visual poetry. When poor Amy isn’t dealing with her less than supportive parents she must contend with a sinister spinster, a frightening old house, alienation from her classmates and even the headless horseman (more HERE)!
BONUS FLICK: All this ghost talk has gotten me pining for my yearly watch of 1982’s GHOST STORY which is based on what I would say is my favorite horror novel of all time of the same name by the late great Peter Straub. Now, this epic phantasmagorical book certainly would be much better served with a miniseries treatment but the existing film has got a great cast, gorgeous effects (thanks to legends Dick Smith providing jaw dropping make-up and Albert Whitlock delivering incredible matte paintings) and the overall bleak, chilling small town atmosphere is truly remarkable. A group of elderly men (the likes of Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and THE FOG ('80)’s grumpy John Houseman) who call themselves “The Chowder Society” gather together to frighten each other with terrifying tales of the supernatural but the scariest story of them all involves a secret from their own past that involves a beautiful woman named Alma (an off the charts ethereal Alice Krige) who just happens to be back from the dead to settle a long standing score. Put it in my veins (and haunt HERE for more)!
Unkle Lancifer –
I love, love, love Curse of the Cat People. As happened a few times, RKO (wanting a sequel to Cat People) gave Jacques Tourneur a title and a blank canvas (more or less) to tell the story he wanted. DeWitt Bodeen returned to script the sequel.
It's the best kind of sequel that tells a new (but related) story rather than repeat the previous one. Along with Something Wicked This Way Comes, I think it's one of the great movies about a child's imagination.
I'm pretty sure the house where the scary neighbor lives is the Amberson mansion of Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons (both films were RKO productions).
I like Ghost Story (the film), but I think it suffers in comparison to The Changeling, which was released around the same time but is a much better movie. I love Peter Straub's novel, which is very literary and probably wasn't easy to adapt. The movie only covers maybe half of the book, with several subplots mostly or entirely dropped. There's a great passage in Straub's novel, set inside a movie theater screening Night of the Living Dead, that isn't in the film at all.