Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Douglas Henshall, Neve McIntosh, Louise Lombard, Adrian Rawlins, Casper Knopf, Maryam Hamidi, Cal MacAninch, Woody Norman, Paul Barber, Andrew John Tait, Calum Caulfield, Billy Thomson.

The issue with ghost stories that some might have has always been in the way the tale is resolved, like the mythical beast who sees the balance of power restored by the villagers below with one last gift offered to sate the taste of vengeance running in its blood. It is to this end that the typical ghost story ends the way it does, the murdered victim slipping away into the ether as the trembling confession is pulled from the mouth of the killer; it is neat and most of the time still leaves the viewer or reader with their own satisfaction sated.

However death, as in life, is far from neat, the spirits are just as mean as the living, and to suggest that they find peace all the time, that they can stop their devilry and fearsome ways, is to believe that the dragon that lives in our veins is always asleep, that at times our own minds don’t wander in to the realm of continued hurt and punishment.

Based upon Susan Hill’s book, The Small Hand, Susan Hill’s Ghost Story is one in which the slow methodical pacing can be seen as deliberate, as infinite, and as vengeance rears its ugly head from beyond the grave, it becomes clear that we place ourselves in a type of eternal combat with those we have wronged, often the bad blood transcending generations.

Whilst it would be a near impossible task to give the same sense of dread that an audience feels when watching Susan Hill’s magnificent creation, The Woman In Black, there is still the mounting suspense which sends the shiver down the spine as the story unfolds. It is in perpetual revenge that the tale seeks its audience, and it doesn’t disappoint, arguably down to the performances of Douglas Henshall as Adam Snow, Neve McIntosh as Denisa and Woody Norman as the child to whom the world has turned away from.

Susan Hill’s Ghost Story may not leave the same sense of unsettled bargaining that The Woman In Black unearths, but it still finds a way to seek out the cold and fearsome, that our actions on Earth leave scars across time, and it is to Time that final revenge is offered.

Ian D. Hall