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IMDbPro

Ghost Story

  • 1974
  • 1h 27m
IMDb RATING
4.9/10
590
YOUR RATING
Larry Dann, Marianne Faithfull, Vivian MacKerrell, Murray Melvin, and Barbara Shelley in Ghost Story (1974)
Several old college friends converge at a mansion, ostensibly for a pleasant reunion. Talbot, the most easygoing of the bunch, comes to the conclusion that all is not well in the old dark house. For one thing, he's run across several people whom he's never met. For another, they all seem to be of a different time and place.
Play trailer4:18
1 Video
9 Photos
HorrorMystery

Several old college friends converge at a mansion, ostensibly for a pleasant reunion. Talbot, the most easygoing of the bunch, comes to the conclusion that all is not well in the old dark ho... Read allSeveral old college friends converge at a mansion, ostensibly for a pleasant reunion. Talbot, the most easygoing of the bunch, comes to the conclusion that all is not well in the old dark house. For one thing, he's run across several people whom he's never met. For another, they ... Read allSeveral old college friends converge at a mansion, ostensibly for a pleasant reunion. Talbot, the most easygoing of the bunch, comes to the conclusion that all is not well in the old dark house. For one thing, he's run across several people whom he's never met. For another, they all seem to be of a different time and place.

  • Director
    • Stephen Weeks
  • Writers
    • Philip Norman
    • Rosemary Sutcliff
    • Stephen Weeks
  • Stars
    • Marianne Faithfull
    • Leigh Lawson
    • Anthony Bate
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    4.9/10
    590
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Stephen Weeks
    • Writers
      • Philip Norman
      • Rosemary Sutcliff
      • Stephen Weeks
    • Stars
      • Marianne Faithfull
      • Leigh Lawson
      • Anthony Bate
    • 16User reviews
    • 15Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 2 wins total

    Videos1

    Trailer
    Trailer 4:18
    Trailer

    Photos8

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    Top cast10

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    Marianne Faithfull
    Marianne Faithfull
    • Sophy Kwykwer
    Leigh Lawson
    Leigh Lawson
    • Robert
    Anthony Bate
    Anthony Bate
    • Doctor Borden
    Larry Dann
    Larry Dann
    • Talbot
    Sally Grace
    • Girl
    Penelope Keith
    Penelope Keith
    • Rennie
    Vivian MacKerrell
    • Duller
    • (as Vivian Mackerell)
    Murray Melvin
    Murray Melvin
    • McFayden
    Barbara Shelley
    Barbara Shelley
    • Matron
    Betty Woolfe
    • Woman on Train
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Stephen Weeks
    • Writers
      • Philip Norman
      • Rosemary Sutcliff
      • Stephen Weeks
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews16

    4.9590
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    Featured reviews

    3hitchcockthelegend

    To The Manor Bored!

    Pretty awful British mystery disguised as a horror film, Ghost Story pitches some poncey people into an old country house retreat and one of them starts to see spectral images that nobody else can. Directed by Stephen Weeks (I, Monster) and starring Anthony Bate, Larry Dann, Marianne Faithful, Sally Grace, Penelope Keith, Leigh Lawson and Vivian MacKerrell, what transpires for the 90 minute run time is utter boredom and bad writing.

    There's too many unanswered questions hanging in the air throughout, the pace is straight out of the snail derby, and the musical score is wholly inappropriate. Faithful gives good value as a tortured soul, and Weeks shows a good turn of ingenuity for some atmospheric scenes in an Asylum, but other than that, this is a cure for insomnia and rightly it has vanished into relative obscurity. 3/10
    4Coventry

    Lot of story, hardly any ghost...

    With a title as vague and dull as "Ghost Story", your film must be pretty darn amazing and suspenseful to be memorable! Alas, this 1974 TV-production is weak altogether, and I guess that's why nobody has ever heard of it. The story, setting and atmosphere certainly hold a lot of potential, but the film is too talkative and slow-paced, with unlikable characters and too many plot-aspects that don't make any sense. Three former college mates gather at an old gothic and remote mansion that one of them inherited, supposedly for a reunion, but they clearly never were close friends. That already causes for a big dent in the plausibility. Through sleeping in a room with an eerie porcelain doll, Talbot - the nerdy one of the bunch - gets a spiritual connection with Sophy Kwykwer; a woman who used to live in the mansion. Sophy was emotionally tormented and eventually submitted to a mental asylum by her no-good husband. A handful of sequences, some involving the doll and some taking place at the uncanny asylum, are noteworthy, but "Ghost Story" isn't worth purchasing. The two most famous names in the cast, namely Marianne Faithfull and Barbara Shelley, hardly have any screen time. Before this film, I only knew Faithfull from her fantastic song "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan". The story and dramatic tone of this four-minute chant is already a lot more intense and impactful than this entire movie.
    TheCapsuleCritic

    GHOST STORY Is Exactly What It Says It Is.

    I first encountered GHOST STORY on VHS in the late 1980s where it had been retitled in America as MADHOUSE MANSION to avoid confusion with the better known 1981 Fred Astaire GHOST STORY. Although the print wasn't great, I was immediately attracted to the story of three 1920s British school chums who get together for a weekend of hunting at a Victorian estate recently inherited by one of them. Shortly after their arrival, strange visions are seen by only one of the three. They involve the former inhabitants of the house and are linked to a porcelain doll that was left behind.

    The three men are an interesting mix. The owner is a rich fop while another is a class conscious snob who is secretly there to ghost hunt having been told the place is haunted. The third is a fish out of water. He's a mild mannered, overly talkative, rather pathetic soul who is looked down upon by the other two. It is to him rather than the ghost seeker that the visions appear. They depict a brother and sister who lived there before. The brother has the sister committed to a local insane asylum in order to prevent him from acting on his "feelings" for her.

    The cast is a curious one. Ken Russell regular Murray Melvin plays MacFayden, the owner of the estate. Cult actor Vivian MacKerrall (WITHNAIL & I) is the ghost seeker/hunter while the plum role of the schoolmate who is visited by the ghosts went to stage and TV actor Larry Dann. Singer Marianne Faithfull, still recovering from her longtime drug addiction but cast for her marquee value, is the unfortunate sister while Leigh Lawson plays her tormented brother. Hammer horror regular Barbara Shelley portrays the asylum matron and Anthony Bate is the asylum director.

    Writer-director Stephen Weeks, who had earlier done I, MONSTER with Christopher Lee and GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT, shot the film in India on a Maharajah's estate that was built during the Victorian era. While this shaved production costs, it created a host of other problems with poor sanitary conditions impacting the health of the cast and crew. Once completed, the film was barely released and had to wait for the advent of home video in order to be discovered and appreciated. Several bonus features on this release chronicle the ups and downs of the production.

    The Blu-Ray release is an all region affair and comes with a plethora of extras. These include a 72 minute documentary on the making of GHOST STORY, 7 early short films by Stephen Weeks, and the surviving 30 minutes of footage from THE BENGAL LANCERS. This was intended to be a major motion picture with Michael York, Trevor Howard, and Christopher Lee but after 10 days it was shut down because its financing collapsed due its backers participation in an elaborate insurance fraud scheme of which the filmmakers were unaware...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.
    4rdigby

    Disappointment for Faithfull fans

    Insomniacs apart, the only viewers likely to be attracted to this curiosity are fans of Marianne Faithfull. If they hope to find a forgotten gem of her career, this will disappoint them. A weak story about the haunting of an English mansion is compromised from the start because the location, which was in India, looks nothing like an English mansion. A feeble script and direction leave even such reliable hands as Penelope Keith and Anthony Bate uncertain of how to play. Followers of Marianne Faithfull will find her in ill fitting costumes and photographed from unflattering angles. The overall effect is amateur.
    4Red-Barracuda

    Pretty lacking ghost story

    Three college acquaintances spend time in an old Victorian mansion. One of them starts seeing visions of events from the previous century, involving a young woman who previously lived in the house. These hallucinations seem to involve an incident where her brother committed her to an insane asylum despite nothing actually being wrong with her.

    Ghost Story has a reasonably interesting cast at its disposal. It includes the ultra-camp Murray Melvin (The Devils, Barry Lyndon) as the effeminate host who invites the others to the mansion; friend of The Rolling Stones Marianne Faithful also stars in the role of the ghostly girl, while To the Manor Born's Penelope Keith also appears. But unfortunately, even with this cast there is terrible chemistry between the actors. Meaning its difficult becoming very involved in their story and it is a weak story at that. The narrative is split into two threads – the current day and the ghostly flashback – but the period story is far superior to the anaemic contemporary one. This means that when events return to the three foppish central characters the film really drags. There are admittedly some decent sequences in the ghostly section such as the scene in the asylum. But overall, there really isn't enough good material here to make this obscurity worth checking out.

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    Related interests

    Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby (1968)
    Horror
    Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway in Chinatown (1974)
    Mystery

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Vivian MacKerrell is the person on whom Withnail (of Withnail and I (1987) fame) is based.
    • Goofs
      Listed as McFayden in the credits, the character is actually called 'McFadyen' and is referred to this throughout the film.
    • Connections
      Featured in Terror on Tape (1985)

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    FAQ15

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • March 19, 1974 (United Kingdom)
    • Country of origin
      • United Kingdom
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Madhouse Mansion
    • Filming locations
      • Tamil Nadu, India
    • Production company
      • Stephen Weeks Company
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 27m(87 min)
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Mono
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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