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FilmsHorror

A Ghost Waits (2020) (film review).

Billed as a modern love story, ‘A Ghost Waits’ takes the undateables to the extreme. Tastefully filmed in arthouse black and white, this film is aimed at people who like their rom-com horror based. The following contains certain spoilers so feel free not to read on.

Jack (actor MacLeod Andrews) is employed to clean up houses and make them ready for new tenants. He is very meticulous and seems to enjoy his job. Never have I seen a man so comprehensively scrub a toilet. I might correct that to never have I seen a man scrub a toilet. Temporarily made homeless by roaches and finding no friend with a sofa, he beds down on the floor of the house.

As viewers, we have already met the ghost, Muriel (actress Natalie Walker), who drove the previous occupants out so now we wait for Jack to be approached. This seems to take quite a long time as we establish who Jack is and how he lives his life or doesn’t. The film really gets going once the ghost starts to haunt with some surreal moments. Once their interaction goes beyond haunting, it gets interesting with enjoyable dialogue and structure. After that it skips along until an ending you will probably see coming from several miles out.

There are many good points about ‘A Ghost Waits’. It is cheerfully low budget and the black and white photography is rather attractive. There is no music soundtrack but there are some catchy tunes, created for the film that is introduced at various points which very much suit the atmosphere. The dialogue works well and the actors are believable. The initial haunting is fairly surreal and could have been developed more. There are no actual scares so this does fall outside of the horror genre and believe it or not into romantic comedy which is good because I didn’t have to hide behind the sofa.

I found the film uneven. The period before the ghost meets Jack is overly long. It definitely works better with both of them in it but the story is stretched to the length of the film. The ending was as expected and this very much felt we were quickly driving down this one-way road with no exits. The film doesn’t work well enough as a comedy to allow this ending and I just felt it soured the whole experience. I enjoyed part of this film but the over long introduction focussing on Jack and the ending spoilt it. Great ear worm songs, though.

Sue Davies

February 2020

(pub: Arrow Video on Demand. 80 minute black and white film)

cast: MacLeod Andrews, Sydney Vollmer, Natalie Walker and Angela Duggins

check out websites: arrow-player.com and www.aghostawakes.com

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