Lady Spectres

I kind of hit that wall of writer fatigue. Or maybe it is just I want to try and watch movies without thinking about the review I’ll be writing for them. Words sometimes manifest themselves during films I watch (or television), and I wanted them nowhere reciting in my mind late into Saturday night/early Sunday morning as Carnival of Souls (1962) was on. Few films just entrance me as it does. I didn’t have the words propagating throughout the movie so I could just enjoy it. The same could be said for early Sunday afternoon while watching Ghost Story (1981). I said early this morning I just would let the films pass before me and enjoy them without being urged to think of what I would write about them afterward. Yes, I’m writing now but there is no novel or War & Peace today. That is a good feeling I hope to retain as the month of October winds down. Only two days after today and it is over. Wow. I started in September and by early October I felt comfortable in my viewing habits. I never overwhelmed myself too much and because of that see the end of October without feeling relieved it is over. That hasn’t always been the case. Even in 2012 when I felt the month couldn’t be any better (and I got in a LOT of films that month!), by the end I was exhausted and ready for some downtime. While Carnival of Souls nearly occupies a place in the month every October, Ghost Story, surprisingly, hasn’t ever I don’t think. It has those money stars from yesteryear (Houseman was in The Fog (1980) while Douglas was in The Changeling (1980) right before this; this would be Astaire’s final film; Fairbanks, Jr. lived to the year 2000, though) which is really why I was initially interested the first time I ever watched it. But Alice Krige, as the specter that returns to haunt them from the past (and Fairbanks’ son(s), played by Craig Wasson), ended up being the impressive actor among her peers. I do agree with a perspective from someone who once commented on a message board that is was jarring seeing Astaire in a film featuring so much sex and nudity. Krige doesn’t appear to be bothered at all nude, quite comfortable in fact. Wasson, her love in the form of twin brothers, is really good, too, I thought. The cast is great. Seeing Astaire in a ghost movie alone is worth seeing this, I think. And he’s heavily featured above the others as he seems the most willing to reveal the secret shared among his “Chowder Society” regarding Krige’s fate. Both films involve motor vehicles going into the drink and drowning with ghosts returning from beyond the grave to try and exist among the living. Krige is part of the horror stable “ghost returning for revenge against those who killed her” genre, and the Chowder Society is to be her targets. She even “influences” two occult squatters to do her bidding in exchange for immortality. Milford is under plentiful snow and serves as the perfect wintry setting for Krige’s return (while flashback allows for sunnier locations involving Krige’s encounters with the Chowders when they were young and both twins played by Wasson). Candace Hilligoss doesn’t realize that she’s “not truly of this world”, more or less an intruder who needs to “return from where she failed to stay” with Herk Harvey and his ghouls often appearing to her. Candace pretty much, like Krige in her film, is out of place, existing without truly belonging. I like how Candace was presented as having little to no soul, just drawn to the Carnival and not really towards people. Krige uses her sexuality to draw in Wasson’s twins so she can get back at the Chowders. Candace is on the fence with some creep who lets a room across from her in a Utah boarding house. Both Alice and Candace eventually emerge from the watery depths and ultimately concludes their temporary stay on this earth.