Inner Ghosts (2018) Review

Inner Ghosts (2018) Review

If ghosts can think and remember who they are, then the physical brain is not the only place where we store our inner selves. Helen (Celia Williams) is asked to train two young women into the art of communicating with the dead. But Helen’s days as a medium are long gone. In fact, she gave up that life 15 years ago when she lost her daughter. Today Helen is a different woman dedicated to her career in brain research. Things start to change when a visit from the other side offers her the design of a device that can do amazing things. But to everything there is a risk.

I was pleasantly surprised by INNER GHOSTS. Writer/director Paulo Leite cites the work of Nigel Kneale as an inspiration and it shows. This has the feel of a throwback to those one-off spooky made-for-TV thingies that cropped up on TV in the Seventies. Even the film’s sound and sets felt like a nod back to the days when less was more in the scare stakes.

INNER GHOSTS has something that a number of other ghost flicks don’t have, and that’s new ideas. For example, I’ve always wondered why it is that ghosts are generally only noticed in the dead of night and not during the day, and after watching this wonderfully eerie flick I now have the answer.  There’s no fancy dressing here, everything is delivered straight and the film is all the more effective for it.

The acting, on the whole, is decent and the script held up where the pacing sometimes faltered. The film’s aesthetic will not endear itself to all but for me it was a Friday night treat, packed full of decent ideas and one startling moment that ranks as one of the best ‘oh my God’ moments I have seen in any film, independently made or otherwise.

TRAILER