Ghost Son

I was strolling through a flea market and found this DVD in a bin for 5 bucks. It looked interesting. I wasn't quite sure what the film had in store for me and I didn't pay attention to the cast, director etc as I would for most horror films. I just liked the cover art, which has gotten me into trouble in the past with notable bombs such as Brotherhood of Blood, ReVamped and other bad ones. I fall for the artwork.

This film, although slow and dragging in some spots, delivered some full fledged--top to bottom, spine chills. The "creep factor" in this movie scored with a bullet and had me squirming on my couch.

Admittedly, I knew little about the director of this film, but I knew that it had an Italian crew behind it and in my humble opinion, they did a nice job. It was just an unusual story and a well made film. My wife got up and walked out on it because it upset her and believe me, it will upset and scare you at the same time. A well shot, acted and produced film. Plus, the star of this movie was someone I had never seen before and my first impression was that she was a talentless hot bod. Wrong on the talentless aspect, right on the hot bod. She was convincing and a capable actor.

I give this film "7 hail Mary's."

Stacey (Laura Harring) and Mark (John Hannah) have recently married and are deeply in love for each other, living in Mark's farm in Africa. When Mark has a fatal car accident, the widow Stacey misses him and decides to stay with their orphan teenager maid Thandi (Mosa Kaiser) in the farm. Later, her friend and doctor Doc (Peter Postlethwaite) finds that Stacey is pregnant of Mark. After a complicated delivery, Stacey notes that her baby in some moments seems to be possessed by the spirit of Mark, trying to kill her to bring her to spend the eternity with Mark.

Lamberto Bava is the son of the great Italian director of horror movies Mario Bava, and directed the cult "Demons" and "Demons 2". Based on these samples of his filmography, I bought "Ghost Son" expecting to see a scary and creepy horror movie. Unfortunately, my expectation was only satisfied in brief moments and I can list some reasons. First, there is no previous development of the key characters of Mark and Stacey and their love, inclusive for a better explanation of the motives of the ghost of Mark trying to bring Stacey to stay with him. The creepy and mysterious Thandi, who insists that lives with her mother that died when she was five years old, is simply wasted along the narrative. I expected to see her mother, but she is simply ignored and limited to be another lie of Thandi. The baby boy recalls "Chucky" in some moments, and Doc is completely stupid, at least not noticing that Stacey has had at least a nervous breakdown. In spite of the flaws in the screenplay, there are some creepy scenes along this film, which could be better and better based on the cast. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Mensagem do Além" ("Message From Beyond")

First of all, I personally adore Demons and Demons 2, I saw them although it was hard to find good horrors without good official movie distributing here in Russia when I was a kid, and that is an unchangeable part of my boyhood. Then I heard nothing about Mr Bava. Then I saw his Ghost Son. Well, it is certainly not a good coming back! Why was the leading character, whom we never really knew to at least like him, in accident in the middle of an empty road? Why do African servants say so dumb and stupid things about human soul? Why is the plot so primitive? Haven't we seen enough ghosts for 100 years of movie production? It is clear that Lamberto Bava has nothing to show us so far. It is a shame.

If you read the blurb for this movie, either here at IMDb or on the back of the dvd, well, that's exactly what you get. What it doesn't tell you is how an apparently all up decent hard-working bloke suddenly becomes somewhat evil straight after death. You'll scratch your head over that one. As a movie premise it is original. Does it work? It didn't for me. There is a vision to this movie. The soundtrack, for example, would have been creepy and perfect, had the story been believable. I question the casting of the two leads as well. John Hannah is usually good in movies and TV, but in this he seems out of his depth, though not as much as Laura Harring. Her whole character, as well as her performance, just seemed wrong to me. Too much perfect makeup for an African farmer's wife, and just too slow off the mark to convince me whenever called to action. The horror elements seemed cobbled together from several other movies, which included the frequent brave camera angles. Maybe in 2007 all this was new enough to pass muster. If so, the movie has aged. There's problems with the storyline as well. Why is a woman babbling to a responsible doctor that her husband is still around and appearing to her still allowed to care alone for an infant? That one is explained by a weird spiritualism, painted as specific to Africa, that everyone believes in. That aspect of the movie is not convincing either, as there's very little side notes or cinematography to go with it, just a few lines from the local grandma. I didn't mind watching the movie as, because of its brave concept, it intrigued me when it didn't work. I enjoyed trying to figure out why, and I enjoyed trying to give it the benefit of the doubt. Ghost Son is a weird movie. If you really enjoy weird movies, and brave concepts for horror, then you may find more to enjoy in this than I did.

Alas, it seems that the golden times of stylish Italian cinema have sunk into oblivion. And the recent brainchild of celebrated filmmaker Lamberto Bava is yet another obvious proof to that assumption.

I felt lucky to watch many films from this prolific director (like Body Puzzle, Delerium, Macabre and both Demons). Albeit not entirely satisfying they have never been that dull.

A suspicion that this new entry to my DVD collection was money thrown to the winds arose shortly in the aftermath of the car crash scene exhibiting an awkward and unlikely position of the body under the flip-over car.

And the sense of shallowness grew up in the course of the ponderously narrated chain of events that followed.

Dumb dialogs, suspenseless script and a total waste of talents from the international cast. The only character that provided more or less passable performance was the mischievous Mark's son juicing up the entire boredom.

Unfortunately, Mario's son job on all accounts could hardly be hailed.

I look forward to seeing his Murder House hopefully expected to be an improvement.