A Ghost Waits (2020) Review
A Ghost Waits (2020) Review
Jack’s (MacLeod Andrews) job is to fix up rental properties to make way for new tenants, but one property keeps winding up empty. Tasked with discovering why and fixing the issue, Jack meets Muriel (Natalie Walker)…a ghost. Muriel’s job is to haunt the home and keep it vacant. They should be enemies but find they have a great deal in common…pulse notwithstanding. Having found a kindred spirit in an otherwise lonely existence, Jack and Muriel must fight for their newfound affection as pressure mounts for them each to fulfil their “cross-purposes”. A genre blending story with heart, humour, a little fear, and big questions.
Currently sitting with a perfect 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the recipient of the BEST FILM award from Total Film Magazine at FrightFest, my expectations were high for director Adam Stovall’s feature film debut A GHOST WAITS, perhaps I had set them too high. Sure, the direction is assured, the players confident and the black-and-white photography works in the film’s favour but for such a simple, straightforward tale I still had niggles with the plotting, the rather pedestrian first half-hour and a lead character that wasn’t quite as sympathetic and endearing as they may have intended him to be.
On the plus side Natalie Walker as Muriel is a triumph and she steals every scene that she’s in, in fact once she has made her appearance proper A GHOST WAITS really kicks off. Until then we are stuck with handyman Jack who’s kind of okay if a little grating. He’s certainly not as funny as I think they would have liked him to be and he challenges EVERYTHING Muriel says pointlessly. For example Muriel tells him that she is a ‘spectral agent’, she should know given that’s the job title she’s been given but no, Jack has to keep correcting her saying that she’s actually a ghost. He’s right she is a ghost but she’s also a ‘spectral agent’. Jack’s constant correcting of her plays as irritating and he’s only like this with interacting with female characters.
As for the niggles given the plethora of ‘reality’ supernatural TV shows in the States why have none of the previous occupants of the haunted rental property thought to make a few bucks off their time there? Also the first half-hour feels protracted and padded – did we really need so much time dedicated to the least appealing character in the film – and it sometimes feels like you’re watching a character-based stage show. See A GHOST WAITS for Natalie Walker and savour every ‘BEETLEJUICE’ flavoured scene that she appears in, endearing and utterly sympathetic she is this film’s ace card and worth sitting through the laboured first half-hour for.
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