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BFI London Film Festival 2016: The Ghoul review

The Ghoul

By on 18/10/2016

The Ghoul starts of as a movie about a detective who goes undercover as a mental health patient in an attempt to solve a double murder and descends into a movie that is anything but….. The Ghoul is a slice of true new wave British cinema

Shot on a super low budget The Ghoul relies on the power of its clever story telling, editing, cinematography and atmosphere building music to power this horror movie of sorts

 

The Ghoul starts off as a cop drama and dissolves in Lynchian and Kill List territory as reality and fantasy dissolve in this tale of the occult. Speaking of Kill List – Ben Wheatley was a producer on this movie

 

From its opening scene of a drive into London, which has nods to The Lost Highway, you’re left with an overbearing feeling this this movie its going to be deep. The main protagonist Chris, played brilliantly by Tom Meetan, appears in every scene of the movie and shows a great achievement in his acting talent. As his investigation into the murders continues reality and fantasy blur to the point that you don’t know what is real and what is hallucination as the film dips into occult territory. Not quite a drama, not quite a thriller, not quite a horror The Ghoul interweaves between the three. It keeps you on your feet and guessing until the end whilst building a brooding atmosphere. This is a movie that should be watched as blind as possible – it’s a psycho horror-thriller that you’ll be talking to your friends about for days after. The Ghoul is a great directional debut from Gareth Tunley who previously made comedy shows

 

Gareth Tunley and Tom Meetan were in attendance for a Q&A session after the movies.

I knew I recognized Gareth from somewhere – he played the priest in Ben Wheatley’s Kill List

The Ghoul

The Ghoul is an amazing slice of cinema and was a great film to close out the London Film Festival with

Tendai