In the Refrigerator: Spirit of a Haunted Dancer

I saw this film at the York Independent Film Festival 2001. I sat through a lot of films over two days - Including mine Trick or Treat. But after eight years, I can safely say that In the Refrigerator: Spirit of a Haunted Dancer has stuck with me as something I would dearly like to watch again.

I enjoyed it at the time and thought that Leslie Ann Coles performance was wonderful and had a haunting quality too. I certainly don't remember thinking that this film is too long - And Lord knows that I am the first to man about the length of a film

If you ever see this Leslie - let me know where I can get a copy. had a nice haunting quality.

This film was shown at the York international film festival in 2002 and I've been purposely avoiding it whenever it's cropped up at various other events ever since.

The whole thing is nothing more than a self indulgent wallow by someone with more money than talent. For reasons that are hard to fathom Leslie Anne Coles has taken it upon herself to play all characters in this film from the middle aged "haunted dancer" to the 200 years dead Irish great grandmother who comes back to watch her dance away the grief of losing her only daughter.

Leslie Anne Coles' attempts to make her self look like a long deceased Irish woman through smearing herself with white makeup and a dough like gluey substance drew nearly as many laughs from the audience as her mock Irish accent and the scenes of the haunted dancer stuffing her face with piles of food from the refrigerator (which we are invited to believe is her way of coming to terms with her loss) told us nothing meaningful about grief or the trauma of loosing a child.

An added extra character in the film is the dancers clinically insane mother (also played by Lesley Anne Coles) who we see repeatedly in her mental institution and then undergoing Electro-Convulsive Therapy but with no further explanation. I can only imagine that she must have been driven to madness by the god-awful script that her other self prepared for her. It certainly came close to having that effect on me.

This film really is, in every way, a turkey.

this is a tedious vanity project. it thinks it is deeply profound but says nothing. miss coles has decided to place herself in nearly every scene for no other reason than to grab as much attention as possible. thoughts of being down the pub and actually having a good time kept on flashing across my mind. i want my 42 minutes of life back please!

I saw this film at a short film festival in England, and perhaps it was presented in the wrong context, because it seemed to go on for ever. While the other shorts were punchy, witty and to the point, this indulgent 'long' wandered on and on, around and around. As I recall the direction, lighting etc were pretty good, but the narrative just meandered all over the place. Elements that were meant to be profound sometimes came across as plain comical, not least the woman in the fridge, but maybe this viewer missed some reference. One of the great rules is 'show don't tell', so the ceaseless explicatory voice over should have been ditched. Maybe this would work at a really 'artsy' festival, but up against low / no budgeted shorts it seemed flabby and dull. The most interesting part of seeing it was my sense of vertiginous panic as I realised minutes of my life were ebbing away watching this twaddle.

I saw this film at the 2001 York Film Festival and was utterly horrified to be subjected to this self-indulgent tripe.

It's an awfully hard 42 minutes to endure, with terrible script writing and direction, and utterly laughable makeup - particularly on 'Grandma'!!

And what's with the title? The fridge has absolutely sweet F.A. to do with the plot!!

The long and the short of it is, DON'T BOTHER WATCHING THIS!!!!!