2018, Olaf de Fleur Johannesson (
The Higher Force) -- Netflix
Debunking the ghost hunter. Suffering retribution on the fake ghost hunter. Acknowledging that which the fake ghost hunter seeks out may turn out to be very very real. Its common enough to almost be a trope, so if you are going to explore it again, be sure to do something very well or at least originally. Alas, again with the just OK. If not for a very focused and intense portrayal by Florence Pugh, I don't think this movie would have even crept into that range.
Angela (Pugh) and Jackson (Ben Lloyd-Hughes) are Americans in Scotland making a rough living pretending to be ghost hunters, hinged around Angela's sensitivity to the dead. Jackson owes money to his drug dealers and Angela is having one too many actually spooky encounter (accompanied by nose bleeds) that she wants to quit the scam. But she gives into her brother for one last gig -- the foster house haunted by murdered children, children killed by the son of the owner Mrs Green. She can still hear their screams and wants the spirits acknowledged and driven away.
This movie is not the house nor creepy Mrs Green nor even the dead little girls walking the unused corridors. This movie should have been all Angela and since the jump scares and dead girls are already fading from my memory, I wish it had been even more about her. We got hints of backstory, drops of a strength behind her quiet demeanour. But that is all pushed aside so we can add to her trauma.
Also, why was this movie set in the 80s? And why were they Americans? There seemed to be plot choices that were made, but then never followed through on.
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