The Ghosts of Borley Rectory

When I got the chance to sit down and watch "The Ghosts of Borley Rectory" I did so immediately. Why? Well, first of all, the movie has Julian Sands on the cast list, and also it being a horror movie that I hadn't already seen.

However, I only knew about "The Ghosts of Borley Rectory" because I had seen it on Julian Sands IMDb list, but aside from that, then I had heard nothing about this movie. So I wasn't really sure what I was in for here, nor really knowing anything about it, aside from it being a horror movie.

Well, "The Ghosts of Borley Rectory" wasn't really all that great of a movie. And even for a horror movie then its plot and storyline was fairly bland, if not actually downright generic. This was essentially just a run-of-the-mill haunted house movie, and not a particularly great one at that.

There was nothing scary to be seen in "The Ghosts of Borley Rectory", unless you are a rookie and a newcomer to the horror genre. For a seasoned veteran such as myself then "The Ghosts of Borley Rectory", as written by Christopher Jolley and Steven M. Smith, was a mere stroll in the park.

Visually then "The Ghosts of Borley Rectory" wasn't particularly thrilling or great. There were a few special effects here and there, but they weren't on any noteworthy level, and came off merely as being watchable. So don't sit down to watch this movie with the intentions of seeing something amazing or super scary.

Director Steven M. Smith didn't really revolutionize the horror genre here with "The Ghosts of Borley Rectory", nor did he bring anything new or interesting to the haunted house subgenre.

The acting performances in "The Ghosts of Borley Rectory" were bland. There wasn't any particular great performances here, and even Julian Sands seemed to run on auto-pilot, and he wasn't given all that much screen time anyway.

"The Ghosts of Borley Rectory" was not a horror movie that left me with any great impression, and it is one that will slowly fade into the mists of oblivion and I will never take another gander at it. Yeah, it was just that bland and mundane.

My rating of "The Ghosts of Borley Rectory" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

The lure of this film were the stars, Colin Baker, Toyah Wilcox and Julian Sands. The reality of this film is the utterly awful script, terrible special effects, dreadful acting that makes 1 and a half hour seem to drag on for three! Avoid it like ghe plague. Dont throw your £4.99 away on Amazon to watch this rubbish! Terrible, truly terrible - all those that appeared in it should be ashamed of themselves. Awful is as awful does!

What is it with the British film industry these days, it has really gone downhill if this is the level of filmmaking that we are left with!

Dreadfully, dreadfully dull, terrible acting from nearly the whole cast; the guy who used to be in the bill trying to do a country yokel has to be seen and heard to be believed (or perhaps not), waffling script with some truly, truly, stilted dialogue, no real scares, dreadful shaky camerawork.

It is based on the true story of the most haunted house in the UK and the old story of the nun who was bricked up in the walls for having an affair with a Monk in the local monastery, which was eventually found to be a whole load of fakery as was Mr Hill himself, so there is very little you can really use to make a film out of; perhaps a 30 min short but to see good actors like Julian Sands and others waste their time in this is cringeworthy - they must really be hard up for the cash these days!

With such an interesting subject matter, this had the potential to be really good. Unfortunately it wasn't. In fact it was quite dreadful. From the opening music to the clumsy editing, wooden acting and stilted dialogue, the only redeeming feature seemed to be Toyah, hamming it up for all she was worth. Definitely one to avoid.

...if only for Toyah Wilcox. Honestly, terrible, slow-paced tale of a "scientist" trying to find evidence of ghosts. There are, it has to be said, some terrible acting performances, and if the stilted dialogue is representative of pre-war Britain, then I'm surprised we got anything done.