Ghost Son

Don't worry, it's not a sequel to Bill Cosby's 1990 flop GHOST DAD. It's actually a fairly interesting semi-remake of the director's late father (Mario Bava)'s final film, SHOCK (1977), released in the U. S. as BEYOND THE DOOR II (even though it had nothing to do with BEYOND THE DOOR). As in SHOCK, a young mother fears that her infant son is possessed by the spirit of its deceased father. She becomes increasingly hysterical as the child exhibits strange behavior that only she can see. That's about the end of the similarities between the two films, however. Whereas the original film was a creepy horror tale aimed squarely at scaring its audience, GHOST SON concentrates more on the problems of dealing with overwhelming grief and how coping with heartbreaking loss can cause a person to lose all objectivity. Thus this is a much more sad and depressing movie than the elder Bava's film, and while it has its share of grotesque moments, few will ever consider it frightening. For the first two-thirds of the film the baby threatens its mother's fragile sanity with incessant pointless screaming, a stubborn refusal to stay put and a habit of vomiting a torrent of horrid greenish slime directly into her face. In other words, it behaves exactly like any normal, ordinary baby. It's only when the little tot bites her breast hard enough to leave what appear to be teeth marks only days after its birth and starts periodically appearing as the image of its full-grown dad that the audience realizes something supernatural is going on. The heroine experiences frequent intense flashbacks to happier times and at one point imagines she's making love to a demonic version of her late husband. Were it not for a couple of isolated incidents, as when a little girl sees the baby speak in the father's voice (achieved via a superimposed moving mouth that gives the scene the unfortunate feel of those funny old "talking baby" Etrade commercials), the entire spiritual possession might be seen as a mere figment of the heroine's imagination. The family doctor tries to help but his main contribution to the plot is his participation in the single most uncalled-for "slap the hysterical female in the face" scene I've ever seen. The husband's sickening bone-crushing death in a road accident is almost unbearable to watch and the story's denouement, which requires the heroine to treat her lost love's spirit in a callous, borderline cruel manner in order to rescue their child, is far more tragic than scary. Still, it's nice to see anything like an Italian horror movie made in 2005 and Bava deserves a lot of credit for daring to give his story an honest-to-goodness ending instead of submitting to the illogical cheap shock conclusion that was tacked onto the vast majority of genre films of this period. Experienced horror viewers won't find much new in GHOST SON, but people who aren't accustomed to movies about ghosts and demons will probably find it intriguing enough.

"Ghost Son" takes place in South Africa.A married couple Stacey and Mark live on the farm with their black teenage maid.Mark and Stacey love each other deeply.Unfortunately Mark dies in a tragic truck accident.Stacey returns to the farm and decides to remain there since she feels close to Mark.She is also carrying Mark's baby.After delivering the baby Stacey quickly becomes sure that her infant son is possessed by Mark's spirit.The evil force tries to kill Stacey to bring her to Mark."Ghost Son" has the higher production values than Lamberto Bava's efforts.The production design is great and the cinematography is very lush.There are some dull moments and silly scenes,though.The climax is truly terrible.6 vomiting babies out of 10.

If you read the blurb for this movie, either here at IMDb or on the back of the dvd, well, that's exactly what you get. What it doesn't tell you is how an apparently all up decent hard-working bloke suddenly becomes somewhat evil straight after death. You'll scratch your head over that one. As a movie premise it is original. Does it work? It didn't for me. There is a vision to this movie. The soundtrack, for example, would have been creepy and perfect, had the story been believable. I question the casting of the two leads as well. John Hannah is usually good in movies and TV, but in this he seems out of his depth, though not as much as Laura Harring. Her whole character, as well as her performance, just seemed wrong to me. Too much perfect makeup for an African farmer's wife, and just too slow off the mark to convince me whenever called to action. The horror elements seemed cobbled together from several other movies, which included the frequent brave camera angles. Maybe in 2007 all this was new enough to pass muster. If so, the movie has aged. There's problems with the storyline as well. Why is a woman babbling to a responsible doctor that her husband is still around and appearing to her still allowed to care alone for an infant? That one is explained by a weird spiritualism, painted as specific to Africa, that everyone believes in. That aspect of the movie is not convincing either, as there's very little side notes or cinematography to go with it, just a few lines from the local grandma. I didn't mind watching the movie as, because of its brave concept, it intrigued me when it didn't work. I enjoyed trying to figure out why, and I enjoyed trying to give it the benefit of the doubt. Ghost Son is a weird movie. If you really enjoy weird movies, and brave concepts for horror, then you may find more to enjoy in this than I did.

Now this, I really consider to be Lamberto Bava's international comeback-movie (instead of his previous lower budget effort, THE TORTURER, in 2005). You gotta hand it to the man: Coming back to the theatrical world of horror with an Italian/South African/Spanish/British co-production. And you know what? To my utmost surprise, it's even pretty decent (I saw this one before I saw THE TORTURER later this week, so you can imagine how unpleasant a surprise the latter was….). It's even hard to believe that GHOST SON and THE TORTURER were both directed by the very same director.

GHOST SON looks great! The cinematography looks astonishing. And Bava really took the time to direct this one. And he clearly had a very comfortable budget to work with (it always helps to have the money to afford a capable and talented crew). Almost every shot in this movie has movement (travel-shots, letting the camera slowly and stylishly turn around the actors, crane shots,….). It was a lust for the eye to see Bava finally being able to show his more technical directing skills again.

The story, on the other hand is a hit and miss deal again. I liked the fact that Bava is giving us a different take on your average ghost story. But while the movie manages to be effectively scary at some points, it also had quite some ridiculous, but highly entertaining events in it (a baby with a boner biting his mother's boobie????). Nevertheless, these events, to me, were extremely fun to watch (still too bad they damaged the over-all 'seriousness' of this movie a bit, though).

All-in-all, Ghost Son is a slow mover, but story-wise it did managed to keep my interest because I wanted to know to where it would all lead to, eventually (just don't expect any exciting twists or surprising conclusion to it because the denouement isn't exactly a spectacular climax). In a world filled with horror-movies containing derivative surprise-twists at the end, Ghost Son manages to simply avoid that trap. Rather rare these days, I'd say. But it was really the more than decent cinematography and Bava's skill-full directing that kept my going through this movie. Well, it even has more merits, of course. Like the good acting by Laura Harring and the adequate musical score. Not to forget Pete Postlethwaite's noticeable presence in this one.

I'm fully aware of the fact that a lot of people might not like this one as much as I did. Some people even might say THE TORTURER is a better movie. I say: Don't believe them, because it's not... but that's totally up to you, of course.

"Ghost Son" is Lamberto Bava's best film and, at the same time, also his worst. I suppose that statement requires some slight clarification. It's his best because it's well directed, ambitious, accessible and very stylish, but his worst because it's a dull, unoriginal movie and undeniably a huge letdown to all the real fans of Bava's past efforts. Let's face it: many fans, myself certainly included, wouldn't have been interested in this film judging by the plot, the famous names attached to it and even the boring sounding title. The only motivation here was Lamberto Bava, who brought us large amounts of convoluted Gialli and fun splatter films in the past. "Ghost Son" is a bit of his comeback film, alongside "The Torturer", and although the latter definitely isn't a good film, it at least lives up to his fans' lines of expectations, with excessive amounts of sleaze, blood and sadism. "Ghost Son" is a weak and intolerably soft horror film, even talking in terms of mainstream ghost stories. The emphasis lies too much on sentimentality, and this badly affects the already limited number of horrific & creepily atmospheric moments. The basic premise might feature one or two potentially good ideas, but the film is overall dull and far too clichéd. John Hannah and Laura Harring star as a happy couple, living on a remote ranch in South Africa and breeding horses for a living. The joy and happiness couldn't possibly improve, so naturally something tragic is bound to happen, and it does. Mark dies in a car accident, but the inconsolable Stacey remains at the ranch where she's in constant contact with Mark's spirit. She even gets pregnant with his child, but shortly after baby Martin's birth mysterious events begin to occur. It seems as if Mark's restless and selfish ghost 'possessed' the baby and uses him to encourage Stacy into committing suicide. With all the focus on the couple's relationship, many of the events and sub plots are underdeveloped and/or remains unexplained, like the whole background of the youthful maid Thandi. There's too little action and the only real fright-moments are too obviously borrowed from classic films such as "The Exorcist" and "Rosemary's Baby" (vomiting green goo, self moving furniture…). Purely talking in terms of horrific entertainment "Ghost Son" is a painful misfire, but it has to be said, it's a beautiful and enchanting looking failure. The cinematography is extremely elegant and many camera angles are truly inventive and suggestive. The moody score sometimes even manages to create an ominous atmosphere even though there's nothing of any significance happening on screen. There are several beautiful images of the South African wildlife to admire but, if that interests you, I suppose you're better off watching National Geographic instead. Not much to recommend here. Fans of atmosphere-driven ghost stories have much better options to choose from and die-hard Bava fanatics are advised to (re-)watch "Demons", "Macabre" or "Blade in the Dark".