| [Contains
spoilers]
This
is one of those movies that should be a ghost
story -- all the way through -- but isn't. It starts
out pretending to be a ghost story and doing quite a
good job of it. The spookiness rings true. But in the
end director Anderson veers into Scooby Doo territory
and the ghostliness is rationalised, not in terms of
smugglers or land developers this time, but via some
typically contrived plot twists that come straight from
the sort of psychological thrillers that Hammer and
Amicus indulged in post-Psycho.
Dominique
Ballard (Jean Simmons) is the increasingly neurotic
wife of David Ballard, a wealthy businessman, who may
very well be encouraging his wife's neuroses in order
to get rid of her. Finally, however, in a fit of desperation,
Dominique hangs herself. After a token funeral, Ballard
-- patently relieved to be rid of the burden -- tries
to carry on, only to find that Dominique keeps returning
to the house: as a ghostly backlit figure moving purposefully
down the corridor towards him, as a piano that insists
on playing the only song Dominique played when alive,
as a whispered voice in the night, as a ghastly hanging
corpse that appears and disappears at random ...
We
(and Ballard) begin to suspect that Dominique isn't
as dead as she'd seemed to be at the funeral when he
digs up her grave and finds the coffin empty. But just
as this particular rationalisation, with its logical
revenge motif, seems set to become the accepted resolution,
the authorities dig her up to make sure and in a surprise
turn actually find the decaying corpse in the coffin.
Anyway, from there the plot takes another twist
or two ... all of them still within the framework of
a rationalist universe, however. The twists are quite
good, actually, but by then it all seems a bit contrived
and the only end that would really have satisfied me
would have been the discovery that Dominique really
was a ghost after all.
This
sort of thing -- where the film-makers try to convince
the viewer that this is a ghost story, and then turn
it around by revealing that it isn't -- is a bit risky,
unless you're very careful and/or clever. One tends
to feel cheated. And there is a cheat factor
involved. Sure, it's easy enough to explain the mysteriously
self-moving bracelet through the use of wires, or the
piano-playing via remote-control, but a point arrives
when the logistical problem of coordinating it all becomes,
shall we say, much less believable than a ghost itself
would be. No one bothers to explain just how the person
pretending to be hanging in the conservatorium manages
to get out of all the harnesses and hide themselves
and the physical evidence in the few minutes it takes
the victim to duck from the room to fetch a collaborative
witness.
As
'clever' as the twisty revelations are, I find it a
bit disappointing that what had nudged me effectively
into a supernatural frame-of-reference turned out to
have been special effects all along! Faked! Damn it!
How dare they! The eerie moodiness, the manifestations
of spectral guilt, the occasional genuine frisson were
better than many of those occurring in movies that intend
to remain supernatural throughout. This could
have been a good ghost story. Instead it was a failed
psychological thriller. And that's just not fair. After
all, if I go to the trouble of suspending my disbelief,
I want something worth suspending it for!
Incidentally,
the veteran cast wasn't too bad at all, including Jenny
Agutter who plays a crucial, if fairly thankless (in
a thespian sense) role in the proceedings. They manage
to convey some conviction -- though more so in regards
to the ghost stuff than the rationalised criminal resolution.
Note:
I watched this film on a cheap DVD set that includes
four old horror films under the title "Four Nights
of Terror". The image was at 4:3 ratio, though
I don't know whether or not it was pan-and-scanned.
The picture quality was awful, the print being faded,
scratched and lacking definition -- probably an ancient
theatrical print that's been used as a hood ornament
for the last 25 years. Yet the film worked to the extent
that I cared that it wasn't the ghost story I'd been
hoping for.
|
DOMINIQUE
[aka
DOMINIQUE IS DEAD]
[aka
AVENGING SPIRIT] |
