Review of Urban Ghost Story

Introduction

Write a story which takes events from the real life case of The Enfield Poltergeist and keep it in the urban environment. Base it in modern day Glasgow and what you have is an interesting premise for a film. When you think of `poltergeist`, you naturally assume something quite bad, aren`t poltergeists meant to be badly behaved?

What did Lizzie bring back with her from her near death experience?

Video

Urban Ghost Story is presented with a 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer which for the most part isn`t too bad. There`s some dirt and grain pretty much throughout but it`s quite minor so it doesn`t interfere. This film looks like a British film with its use of a drab colour palette and the kind of filmstock always seen in a typical British movie. Perhaps this is intentional in its portrayal.

Audio

Urban Ghost Story is presented with 5.1 DD sound and this sounds clear and dynamic throughout. There are instances where the sound can be frightening in tone so I was pleased this worked. Dialogue came in clear though I have trouble with the Glaswegian accents some of the time so had to replay bits. Good musical score too which didn`t let on to what was about to happen. Very effective.

Features

A nice menu leads us on to two commentary tracks and these make for interesting listening. The Making of is 16 minutes long and quite good while it lasts, it`s unfortunate there isn`t anymore to this as I was quite intrigued by the film. Following this there are 11 minutes of Deleted Scenes with explanations from Chris Jones (co-writer/producer) as to why these scenes were removed.

Real Urban Ghosts is a 20 minute featurette covering real life events and in particular the Enfield Poltergeist. I laughed at first, afterall, Enfield? But I found its eery reality to be quite frightening. Lastly we get the musical score by Rupert Gregson-Williams and if you leave this running, you get an anamorphically enhanced slideshow with stills from the movie. The music is quite good so I have this running in the background with the TV off. There are no subtitles on this film, which I thought was a serious omission. While for the most part I could understand the Scots accent, there are moments when subtitles can make it clearer!

It`s a shame with an increasing move towards producing anamorphically enhanced features that we still have to adjust our sets for titles like Urban Ghost Story. This is a minor niggle though.

Conclusion

Urban Ghost Story has real moments of fright, all the more real through the very look of the film with its subdued colour palette. Some parts have an almost documentary feel to it and this adds to the idea of `being there`, making one or two key scenes quite jump worthy! Sadly it looks like a typical British movie and filming on a council estate doesn`t help its bleak and dull look.

The cast here are good and quite believable, though I was a little surprised to see Robin Hood himself, Jason Connery. Nicola Stapleton`s accent transformation from East End Cockney to Glaswegian was good (i.e. I had difficulty understanding it) though subtitles would have helped in some moments. Plus good performances from Stephanie Buttle as Lizzie`s mother trying to stop the family from being torn apart by the social events surrounding them and Heather Ann Foster as Lizzie showing just the right blend of trauma and emotion.

I should mention that the extra features aren`t bad at all, and in fact the `Real Urban Ghosts` feature was scary. Certainly after seeing this you can see what the intentions of the filmmakers were, but I feel getting creative to end the story didn`t work as well as it could and it lacks bite. Lizzie`s guilt was all too obvious for the hell the family had been subjected to and to end it like this wasn`t a rewarding enough experience.

This is an interesting film and I enjoyed watching it up to a point. The point where it started to go downhill was towards the end where I felt a more satisfying ending should have been made. There isn`t a proper resolution to the story and I was left wondering, "Is that it?". There`s a good story at its heart, but I think I was looking for more than what the story delivered.

So, is this movie really, "...the best British horror movie of the year..."? Well, I don`t know how many other British horror movies came out, I would wager few if any at all. I think this movie makes for good entertainment and is worthy of renting if you`re short on ideas of what to see.