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| Fun fact - The Ghoul's poster art and logo was designed by none other than Dave "Bollo The Gorilla" Brown from The Mighty Boosh |
Arrow Video has carved out quite the
niche for themselves in the last few years as one of the finest
labels for lavish special editions of vintage cult and genre films.
Yet along the way, every now and then they have surprised us with the
debut of a brand-new indie film as well. This fall they
brought us one such debut, with the blu-ray release of The Ghoul:
a fractured psychological thriller executive produced by Ben Wheatley
(High Rise, A
Field in England). Muted,
dreamlike, unreal, and highly disconcerting, this first feature film
by writer/director Gareth Tunley leaves a very strong impression, if
you're open to its particular off-kilter wavelength. It certainly
won't be for everyone, and even if it is for you, it's probably not
what you'll expect (and I mean that in the best way). But if you're
the type of psychologically-minded indie film lover who will enjoy
Tunley's trip down this rabbit hole, it is one of the fall's must-see
films.
The film follows a
police detective (Tom Meeten) who goes undercover as a psychiatric
patient to try and track down a murder suspect who disappeared, with
his therapist as the only lead. But his cover story is that of a
mentally-ill man who dissociates into a fantasy where he is a police
detective in order to escape his painful existence. As the line
between reality and cover story begin to blur, somewhere along the
way both the character and the audience lose track of which of these
stories is true, and which is a construction; a kaleidoscope of
identity in which both protagonist and viewer have no real sense of
which way is up, or what is real. The film is boldly disorienting,
making the gutsy decision to leave the audience just as unmoored and
lost as its troubled main character. It takes on the slippery reality
of a dream, and asks the viewer to solve a puzzle with pieces that it
keeps rearranging.
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| "Was it the ball, or was it the saucer from the cup?" |
This
experimental approach will surely make the film a very divisive one:
not everyone is going to like feeling as off-balance as The
Ghoul makes you feel for most of
its runtime, and its deliberately-paced, sneaky slow-burn style
likewise won't be for all tastes. But if you are the sort of person
who is going to like The Ghoul,
these are two of its biggest assets. Its slowly-unfolding existential
mystery is as tantalizing as it is unsettling, and for a first-time
director Tunley handles it very well. Ben Wheatley was clearly a
stylistic influence on the film as well as the executive producer,
and fans of his work will notice some artistic similarities, but
Tunley has a very strong voice all his own, and this is a most
impressive debut. Cinematographer Benjamin Pritchard's camerawork
perfectly matches Tunley's slippery, dreamlike storytelling
sensibilities, capturing our troubled protagonist's perspective with
ethereal, haunting images of city life turned into a dreamscape.
Solidifying this well-crafted tone is the excellent score by Waen
Shepherd, which is quite eclectic in its style, but at times is
reminiscent of Trent Reznor's more ambient instrumental work.
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| "I fell into a similar depression when I found out Luxury Comedy didn't get renewed for season 3... though personally, I blame Ice Cream Eyes." |
As the
character whose increasingly-fractured perspective is the lens
through which we see the story, Tom Meeten (who also co-produced the
movie) gives a truly excellent performance. Meeten is generally a
comedic actor, from the same generation of surrealist British
comedians which gave us Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt of The
Mighty Boosh fame and Richard
Ayowade. I know him best from his wonderfully bizarre co-starring
role as a stilted, possibly-robotic Andy Warhol on Noel
Fielding's Luxury Comedy. But in
keeping with the wisdom that often comedians make the best, most
emotionally-intense dramatic actors, Meeten is brilliant here in a
dark, light-on-dialogue and heavy-on-externalized-pain performance.
Since much of the film consists of either taciturn therapy sessions
or scenes of his character grappling with his emotions alone, he
delivers a powerfully show-not-tell performance, and conveys a deep
internal struggle in a way which is extremely genuine and believable.
He plays a haunted soul perfectly. Actually, most of the rest of the
cast consists of comedians as well, despite this being a seriously
dark film with almost no humor. Female lead Alice Lowe will be
familiar to fans of the stranger reaches of British humor from Ben
Wheatley's serial-killer comedy Sightseers
and Richard Ayowade's camp-pulp meta-parody Garth
Marenghi's Darkplace, as well as
Hot Fuzz. Indeed, this
whole project originated from a group of friends (including Meeten,
Lowe, and Gareth Tunley) who bonded in England's comedy scene, before
deciding to dive deep into the most serious pathos of their work with
this film. While it marks a major career departure for all of them,
they make the shift to downbeat psychological nightmare brilliantly.
If ever there was a perfect argument that a strong understanding of
comedy gives artists the powerful grasp of human emotion required to
make the darkest sort of drama, surely it is The Ghoul.
While
this seems like it could easily be the sort of strange, unusual indie
feature that has trouble finding a home, The Ghoul
found a perfect fit with Arrow Video. Arrow has given the film their
usual special edition treatment, with some solid extras. First and
foremost is a 40-minute making-of documentary featuring most of the
cast and crew, which thoroughly delves into the film's production,
and offers a really interesting history of how a bunch of surrealist
sketch comedians came to make this most unlikely film. It gives a
very genuine, honest, self-deprecating look at how a no-budget indie
feature gets made, which should be quite inspiring to any aspiring
filmmakers watching, and which will definitely give the viewer an
even greater appreciation for the final product: that a film this
confident and effective could be shot on a shoestring in the homes of
the actors and their family members is seriously impressive. The disc
also includes a commentary by Meeten, Tunley, and co-producer Jack
Guttman, which gives still more insight into the film's micro-budget
indie origins, and is a very entertaining listen, as the three are
obviously friends as well as collaborators, and have great chemistry.
Rounding out the extras is Tunley and Meeten's dark-comedy short film
The Baron, with an
optional commentary by the two actor-filmmakers. All in all, Arrow
has given the film a very impressive package which helps elevate the
indie to the cult status that it certainly deserves. It's great that
the company treats new films like this with the same care they give
to more established cult classics.
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| "Ok, fine, I'll stop making jokes in the captions about a TV show that almost no Americans have seen..." |
While
its dreamlike, disorienting style likely won't be for everyone, fans
of mind-bending psychological thrillers will find a lot to love in
The Ghoul. It's the
sort of film that certainly demands multiple viewings to sort out its
surreal puzzle structure, and as such Arrow's blu-ray or DVD are
highly recommended. While the project had its origins in England's
indie comedy scene, its experimental darkness could very well be the
career-launch of a new arthouse filmmaker following in the footsteps
of executive producer Wheatley. This is a very impressive
debut for Gareth Tunley, and it will be exciting to see what he does
for his follow-up. It is also an eye-opening dramatic acting debut
for Tom Meeten: Luxury Comedy's
surreal embodiment of Andy Warhol is unrecognizable in this haunted,
brooding performance. This is definitely an actor-filmmaker team to
watch out for.
Score:
- Christopher S. Jordan
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