Ghost Stories (2017) **

Source: Imdb

This arthouse horror story about an author living to debunk supernatural experiences did not deliver. At all. I hated the main character, an unsympathetic klutz with no social skills or empathy. He was pathetic, and it’s very difficult to enjoy a movie if you can’t emphasise with the protagonist. The plot itself seemed mostly fine. The three ghost stories that the professor listened to were genuinely scary and well-executed once you get over the inconsistencies, like why would they have a 24h guard inside an abandoned, dilapidated asylum building... So, what I mean is, there was potential for some really good horror in here, but then they went overboard and just put in everything they could think of, zombies and demons and satyrs, and it just stopped making sense as a story and turned into a freak show. Because I did not care about the character, I also was not at all interested in his sudden back-story and the eventual, stupid and cliché conclusion.
The technical execution reflected the jumbled and inconsistent feel of this film. They had a beautiful but totally unfitting score, gorgeous cinematography (in places) which made the other bits grate even more and stick out like sore thumbs. It all looked just thrown together without an eye for the bigger picture. The shots made no sense some of the time and the editing seemed uninspired.
Overall, this looks like it would have had potential. The acting, especially for the supporting roles, was brilliant – Martin Freeman provided some beautiful reactions; Alex Lawther as stressed-out teenager on the edge of a psychotic breakdown was just awe-inspiring. - The cinematographer is clearly a huge talent and the story could have been moulded into something that made sense. Sadly, this looks like a beginner’s project - unsurprisingly, as this is a directorial debut.
So, yeah, 2/5. Sadly, I can’t recommend. The story just got too out-of-hand in the last third and stopped making any kind of sense whatsoever.

Ghost Stories on Imdb