The Ghosts of Borley Rectory

It isn't fair to judge this film as a genre ghost story, because it isn't. It's a retelling of real story from the 1920's and should be judged as such. As a based on a True Story tell it reasonably recreates the story as told in the papers of the time. There have been a number of films and TV plays retelling the story over the last few years and this is one of the better ones with good acting from Wilcox, Sands and Baker and some interesting photography and direction. So if you watching this in expectation of a 'The Conjuring' style story are going to be disappointed but if a story of another time when the people where recovering from the impacts of a mass casualty war with an attendant growth in belief in the supernatural then this will be of interest.

With such an interesting subject matter, this had the potential to be really good. Unfortunately it wasn't. In fact it was quite dreadful. From the opening music to the clumsy editing, wooden acting and stilted dialogue, the only redeeming feature seemed to be Toyah, hamming it up for all she was worth. Definitely one to avoid.

The most haunted house in England burned down before WWII. Until then it had the scariest rep in town. A team shows up in the 30s for a six-month stint at getting to the roots of the hauntings. This was better than expected. It held me and even shivered me timbers on occasion.

What is it with the British film industry these days, it has really gone downhill if this is the level of filmmaking that we are left with!

Dreadfully, dreadfully dull, terrible acting from nearly the whole cast; the guy who used to be in the bill trying to do a country yokel has to be seen and heard to be believed (or perhaps not), waffling script with some truly, truly, stilted dialogue, no real scares, dreadful shaky camerawork.

It is based on the true story of the most haunted house in the UK and the old story of the nun who was bricked up in the walls for having an affair with a Monk in the local monastery, which was eventually found to be a whole load of fakery as was Mr Hill himself, so there is very little you can really use to make a film out of; perhaps a 30 min short but to see good actors like Julian Sands and others waste their time in this is cringeworthy - they must really be hard up for the cash these days!

When will they ever learn?

I mean, when will they learn anything about filmmaking?

I should have guessed by the over the top "Production Company" titles, followed by the numbingly endless actual titles, that this was going to end badly.

Still, I wasn't disappointed by my own prediction, so that deserves, at best, one grudgingly appointed star.

But please, don't let this talentless twit direct anything ever again.

Spoiler alert : There is nothing left to spoil.