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Ghost Story (film)
Encyclopedia
Ghost Story is a 1981 American
horror film
directed by John Irvin
and based on the book of the same name
by Peter Straub
. It stars Fred Astaire
, Melvyn Douglas
, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., John Houseman
and Craig Wasson
(in a dual role). It was the last film to feature Astaire, Fairbanks, and Douglas, and the first film to feature Michael O'Neill
. The film was shot in Woodstock, VT, Saratoga Springs, NY and at Stetson University
in Deland, FL.
of the same name by Straub.
In a small New England town, four elderly friends form what they call the Chowder Society, an informal club where they regale each other with scary stories. Membership in the club, in fact, requires that one present such a story. The four friends are Ricky Hawthorne, a business owner, Sears James, a Lawyer, along with Dr. John Jaffrey and Edward Charles Wanderley, the Mayor.
When Edward's son, David, living in New York, falls from a window after the girl he's sleeping with turns suddenly into a demon, Edward grieves. His other son, Don, a college professor who's fallen on hard times, shows up in town, not getting a great reception from Edward, who always preferred the other, more ambitious son.
But now the four elderly gentlemen are unsettled and have nightmares. Clearly, something is bothering them. Edward becomes so distraught that he wanders across a bridge in the snow. When he sees the same female apparition that caused his son to fall to his death, Edward, too, falls to his death from the bridge. Although his death is ruled a suicide, his son Don and Edward's three remaining elderly friends doubt it. Don approaches the remaining three friends, requests membership in their group and offers up a bizarre "ghost" story of his own.
Don's flashback: A few years earlier, then a promising junior professor, Don meets Alma, a beautiful if mysterious secretary who had come to work for the university. They immediately become involved in a torrid sexual affair that causes him to miss work and earn the scorn of the Dean who previously championed him. But Don finds a strange coldness about this strange, exotic, and he drops her. Later, he hears from his brother David that he has met the same girl in New York and intends to marry her. Don warns his brother that she's trouble, but to no avail. And indeed, Don suspects she caused his fatal fall from the building as seen earlier.
In the present, the elderly friends react to Don's story. Sears discounts it, but Ricky believes him. Elderly Dr. John Jaffrey, after having a nightmare about the same woman, Alma, dies of a heart attack. This leaves only Sears and Ricky. Thus, they finally tell Don their own strange history with a woman who looked exactly like Alma.
Their flashback: Back when the four friends were young, the beautiful Eva Galley came to town, and, indeed, it's obvious that she's the same person as Alma in the present. The four friends are smitten with Eva, who encourages their sexual interest.
It was Young Edward (Don's father) who first took her to bed, but he was impotent with her. Outside her house, the other three friends serenaded Eva in hopes of catching a glimpse of her when a shirtless Edward comes to the window instead, giving the impression that he did sleep with her. Edward leaves with his friends, and the four become very drunk, discussing Eva's prowess in the bedroom. They return to her house, where all but Sears dances with her. When it's proposed that they leave, Sears suggestively insists on getting his dance, to which she pointedly responds that she intends to dance with all of them. She confronts Edward about what he had told his friends, then is about to tell them the truth when Young Edward leaps to silence her, knocking her down, accidentally smashing her head into the stone fireplace. Horrified, the young men believe that she is dead. They consider calling the police, but realize it would only mean wrecking their lives. Instead, they load her body into her car, then push it into the nearby lake. As the car descends, Eva stirs inside, looking out at them from the back window, still alive.
Back in the present, Ricky and Sears admit that the death has haunted them all these years. Whereas Sears is dubious, both Ricky and Don believe that Alma and Eva are one and the same and that her ghost has returned to seek revenge.
Don suggests they go to Eva's old house, now in ruins, to confront the past and her ghost once and for all. They go there, but Don falls on the rotting stairs and breaks his leg. Sears leaves in his car to seek help, leaving Don and Ricky behind. While driving through the snowstorm, Sears comes upon Eva's apparition. He slams on the brakes, and swerves to the side of the road. He survives, but is attacked by one of Eva's accomplices, Fenny Bate, and is presumably killed.
Ricky nearly dies at the hands of Eva's other accomplice, Gregory Bate, but Ricky stabs him and escapes to get to the authorities, telling them to pull Eva's car up from the lake to reveal her body inside. This is intercut with Don, who confronts the rotting specter of Alma/Eva. Ricky and the authorities drag out the ancient car, opening the rusted, corroded door, finding the still-living rotting corpse inside. It falls out, disintegrating before their eyes. Don is spared from the her vengeance and the town is restored to peace.
Critical reception was mixed upon release. Rotten Tomatoes
gave it a 36% "rotten" rating. Roger Ebert
gave it a positive review, praising the performances and considering it an improvement on Straub's novel. In The New York Times
, Vincent Canby
had the opposite view, also praising the performances but feeling that the movie oversimplified Straub's story and themes.
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
directed by John Irvin
John Irvin
John Irvin is an English film director. Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, he began his career by directing a number of documentaries and television works, including the BBC adaptation of John le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy...
and based on the book of the same name
Ghost Story (Straub novel)
Ghost Story is a horror novel by Peter Straub that was published in 1979 by Coward, McCann and Geoghegan. It was adapted into a film in 1981.The novel was a watershed in Straub's career...
by Peter Straub
Peter Straub
Peter Francis Straub is an American author and poet, most famous for his work in the horror genre. His horror fiction has received numerous literary honors such as the Bram Stoker Award, World Fantasy Award, and International Horror Guild Award, placing him among the most-honored horror authors in...
. It stars Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
, Melvyn Douglas
Melvyn Douglas
Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg , better known as Melvyn Douglas, was an American actor.Coming to prominence in the 1930s as a suave leading man , Douglas later transitioned into more mature and fatherly roles as in his Academy Award-winning performances in Hud...
, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., John Houseman
John Houseman
John Houseman was a Romanian-born British-American actor and film producer who became known for his highly publicized collaboration with director Orson Welles from their days in the Federal Theatre Project through to the production of Citizen Kane...
and Craig Wasson
Craig Wasson
-Career:Wasson's first feature film was the 1977 suspense thriller Rollercoaster. In 1978, he appeared in two films about the Vietnam war: first as a private in The Boys in Company C and then as a corporal in Go Tell the Spartans. In 1982, he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for New Star of...
(in a dual role). It was the last film to feature Astaire, Fairbanks, and Douglas, and the first film to feature Michael O'Neill
Michael O'Neill (actor)
Michael O'Neill is an American actor.With a career stretching through three decades, he usually portrays senior law enforcement or military officers. He is perhaps best known for his role as Special Agent Ron Butterfield, the head of President Josiah Bartlet's Secret Service detail, on The West Wing...
. The film was shot in Woodstock, VT, Saratoga Springs, NY and at Stetson University
Stetson University
Stetson University is a private university with four colleges and schools located across the I-4 corridor in Central Florida. The primary undergraduate campus is located in DeLand, Florida, USA. In the 2012 U.S...
in Deland, FL.
Plot
The plot is taken from the novelGhost Story (Straub novel)
Ghost Story is a horror novel by Peter Straub that was published in 1979 by Coward, McCann and Geoghegan. It was adapted into a film in 1981.The novel was a watershed in Straub's career...
of the same name by Straub.
In a small New England town, four elderly friends form what they call the Chowder Society, an informal club where they regale each other with scary stories. Membership in the club, in fact, requires that one present such a story. The four friends are Ricky Hawthorne, a business owner, Sears James, a Lawyer, along with Dr. John Jaffrey and Edward Charles Wanderley, the Mayor.
When Edward's son, David, living in New York, falls from a window after the girl he's sleeping with turns suddenly into a demon, Edward grieves. His other son, Don, a college professor who's fallen on hard times, shows up in town, not getting a great reception from Edward, who always preferred the other, more ambitious son.
But now the four elderly gentlemen are unsettled and have nightmares. Clearly, something is bothering them. Edward becomes so distraught that he wanders across a bridge in the snow. When he sees the same female apparition that caused his son to fall to his death, Edward, too, falls to his death from the bridge. Although his death is ruled a suicide, his son Don and Edward's three remaining elderly friends doubt it. Don approaches the remaining three friends, requests membership in their group and offers up a bizarre "ghost" story of his own.
Don's flashback: A few years earlier, then a promising junior professor, Don meets Alma, a beautiful if mysterious secretary who had come to work for the university. They immediately become involved in a torrid sexual affair that causes him to miss work and earn the scorn of the Dean who previously championed him. But Don finds a strange coldness about this strange, exotic, and he drops her. Later, he hears from his brother David that he has met the same girl in New York and intends to marry her. Don warns his brother that she's trouble, but to no avail. And indeed, Don suspects she caused his fatal fall from the building as seen earlier.
In the present, the elderly friends react to Don's story. Sears discounts it, but Ricky believes him. Elderly Dr. John Jaffrey, after having a nightmare about the same woman, Alma, dies of a heart attack. This leaves only Sears and Ricky. Thus, they finally tell Don their own strange history with a woman who looked exactly like Alma.
Their flashback: Back when the four friends were young, the beautiful Eva Galley came to town, and, indeed, it's obvious that she's the same person as Alma in the present. The four friends are smitten with Eva, who encourages their sexual interest.
It was Young Edward (Don's father) who first took her to bed, but he was impotent with her. Outside her house, the other three friends serenaded Eva in hopes of catching a glimpse of her when a shirtless Edward comes to the window instead, giving the impression that he did sleep with her. Edward leaves with his friends, and the four become very drunk, discussing Eva's prowess in the bedroom. They return to her house, where all but Sears dances with her. When it's proposed that they leave, Sears suggestively insists on getting his dance, to which she pointedly responds that she intends to dance with all of them. She confronts Edward about what he had told his friends, then is about to tell them the truth when Young Edward leaps to silence her, knocking her down, accidentally smashing her head into the stone fireplace. Horrified, the young men believe that she is dead. They consider calling the police, but realize it would only mean wrecking their lives. Instead, they load her body into her car, then push it into the nearby lake. As the car descends, Eva stirs inside, looking out at them from the back window, still alive.
Back in the present, Ricky and Sears admit that the death has haunted them all these years. Whereas Sears is dubious, both Ricky and Don believe that Alma and Eva are one and the same and that her ghost has returned to seek revenge.
Don suggests they go to Eva's old house, now in ruins, to confront the past and her ghost once and for all. They go there, but Don falls on the rotting stairs and breaks his leg. Sears leaves in his car to seek help, leaving Don and Ricky behind. While driving through the snowstorm, Sears comes upon Eva's apparition. He slams on the brakes, and swerves to the side of the road. He survives, but is attacked by one of Eva's accomplices, Fenny Bate, and is presumably killed.
Ricky nearly dies at the hands of Eva's other accomplice, Gregory Bate, but Ricky stabs him and escapes to get to the authorities, telling them to pull Eva's car up from the lake to reveal her body inside. This is intercut with Don, who confronts the rotting specter of Alma/Eva. Ricky and the authorities drag out the ancient car, opening the rusted, corroded door, finding the still-living rotting corpse inside. It falls out, disintegrating before their eyes. Don is spared from the her vengeance and the town is restored to peace.
Cast
- Fred AstaireFred AstaireFred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
as Ricky Hawthorne - Melvyn DouglasMelvyn DouglasMelvyn Edouard Hesselberg , better known as Melvyn Douglas, was an American actor.Coming to prominence in the 1930s as a suave leading man , Douglas later transitioned into more mature and fatherly roles as in his Academy Award-winning performances in Hud...
as Dr. John Jaffrey - Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as Edward Charles Wanderley
- John HousemanJohn HousemanJohn Houseman was a Romanian-born British-American actor and film producer who became known for his highly publicized collaboration with director Orson Welles from their days in the Federal Theatre Project through to the production of Citizen Kane...
as Sears James - Craig WassonCraig Wasson-Career:Wasson's first feature film was the 1977 suspense thriller Rollercoaster. In 1978, he appeared in two films about the Vietnam war: first as a private in The Boys in Company C and then as a corporal in Go Tell the Spartans. In 1982, he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for New Star of...
as Don / David Wanderley - Patricia NealPatricia NealPatricia Neal was an American actress of stage and screen. She was best known for her film roles as World War II widow Helen Benson in The Day the Earth Stood Still , wealthy matron Emily Eustace Failenson in Breakfast at Tiffany's , middle-aged housekeeper Alma Brown in Hud , for which she won...
as Stella Hawthorne - Alice KrigeAlice KrigeAlice Maud Krige is a South African actress. Her first feature film role was as the Gilbert and Sullivan singer Sybil Gordon in the 1981 Academy Award-winning film Chariots of Fire...
as Eva Galli / Alma Mobley
Reception
The film earned a respectable $23,371,905 at the US box office. It was the third highest grossing horror film of 1981 and the 34th highest grosser of the year.Critical reception was mixed upon release. Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
gave it a 36% "rotten" rating. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave it a positive review, praising the performances and considering it an improvement on Straub's novel. In The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...
had the opposite view, also praising the performances but feeling that the movie oversimplified Straub's story and themes.