Harry Price: Ghost Hunter

Apparently the real Harry Price was a well regarded paranormal investigator who had a reputation for exposing fakes.

This ITV made for television film had all the hallmarks for being a potential pilot to a series. However the very poor ratings it received over the Christmas period makes any series very unlikely.

Rafe Spall played Harry Price dragged out of self exposed exile in the 1920s to look into the case of a leading politician's wife who is displaying bizarre behaviour and having haunting visions of a drowned child in a big house they recently moved into.

Harry Price is adamant that their is a rational explanation to all this. The smarmy politician, who seems to be based partly on David Cameron with his 'we are all in it together' quip near the start of the programme has other motives in engaging Price to look into his wife's strange condition at a politically sensitive time for him.

Well I was not sure what to make of the husband's own behaviour because the character was so badly written which to me lessened a lot of the mystery. He does not want Price snooping around, he does not want him to talk to his wife. He will not even engage medical doctors to treat his wife. Given the way he was behaving over his wife's condition why did anyone reckon he was potential Prime Minister was beyond me!

Price with the assistance of the household's combative maid delves deep onto this mystery but really it was rather shallow, plodding and over-long. When Price is not moping around with memories of his own dead wife or the soldier who killed himself in front of him displays the whizz bang of the modern day Sherlock (I noticed the film had a cameo from David Burke who was Dr Watson version 1 in the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes series) and the demystification of Jonathan Creek without the humour and agility.

I couldn't care less if its not an accurate representation of the real Harry Price, all I know is it's a rollicking good tale well told and acted. Don't understand at all why it wasn't picked up for a series. Far better than anything Mark Gatiss has come up with recently.

Superb, thought-provoking period piece with contemporary and feminist undertones; and there's the rub, in that, usually, I have little time for entertainment projecting contemporary liberal ideology onto period pieces, which, by dint of chronology makes a mockery of us all. However, due to the consistent quality and interesting plot I was able to set my misgivings aside and thoroughly enjoy the film. Following World War 1, known as the the Great War, most British families had lost close family members, many, more than one. As a result there was extensive interest in the afterlife, the spirit world, in that, many people wanted to reach out to their loved ones because for many, they never have had the opportunity to say goodbye, subsequently, the fad produced so-called supernaturalists, deceitful men and women keen to cash in on grieving relatives. Into this environment comes Harry Price, 'ghost hunter', a modern scientist aghast at witnessing these parasites prey on grieving families and seeks to expose both them and their methods. However, Harry, played brilliantly by Rafe Spall, succumbs to 'evoking' the spirits on behalf of a grieving soldier but the well-meaning deceit goes dreadfully wrong and his 'victim' commits suicide leaving Harry bereft. Months later, we find Harry morose and drifting, somewhat hangdog and unemployed. Into this environment arrives a senior opposition politician with an urgent need for Harry's particular skill set; it seems a promising politician's wife is being troubled by the dead and only the Ghost Hunter can help. On Harry's journey to unmask the perpetrators or confront the dead he is ably assisted by Downtons Abbey's Cara Theobold as Sara Green who puts in a marvellous performance as the hard put-upon maid of the haunted household. The supporting cast, Zoe Boyle, Tom Ward and Richie Campbell are competent as well as confident, typical of a quality British production. In closing, I believe there is, within this film the promise of a great TV show if the ITV network which produced the show demonstrates a little vision and courage. All in all a spooky 8/10.

Good plot, lovely performances by all, nice period setting. I, too, wish it had become a regular series, I would have enjoyed that.

A really enjoyable story and resolution. Good characters, plot and acting. Wish it were a series.