Ghost Stories (1987)
"Death on Lightning!"
A Parable, told in the form of three symbolic ghost stories
Ghost Stories (1987) was a rather unknown British short movie that was made to entertain (or scare) the young. Though, that doesn't stop it from telling some very adult concepts, either.
In it, our protagonist is a 19th century Englishman is in a group meeting with some friends when the wind howls, blasts open a window, blows out the candles (the only lights in the room), and creates chaos throughout. Fortunately, all become organized and get everything settled. This gets everyone interested in telling some fascinating horror stories, and thus they were told.
The first story is about a buggy entrepreneur going out for a drink (alcohol is a common theme in this movie and if I remember correctly it might have been used in all 3 or 4 stories.) He gets drunk and walks over to a dark, abandoned and very dilapidated apartment, falling back on (and then off) a dark post that has fallen against a dresser, falling asleep.
He dreams of waking up sometime later in the night to the sound of horse hooves and yelps. So he walks outside to see a buggy headsman who has skin the color of a white paste, and two very black horses with red eyes.
He asks to be transported to a restaurant and while waiting in the buggy, he is asked to wait, and a little time later a mysterious woman with a hood and two men who look like former British soldiers enter the buggy too. Their skin is a ghostly white, too, though not everything is at is seems.
These men are acting very strange because their body language suggests that they are actually criminals bent upon doing some nefarious actions. This tips off the protagonist, who follows them to where they're going (a bar, and potential crime ring.)
They enter the bar, which is pretty barren, though one man later goes over to the main character and tells him to leave. The protagonist suggests they are going to rape the woman and this tips off the bad guys who get into battle with our main character. The protagonist wins, and the lady is saved, but apparently these men also have ghosts that are chasing him and the lady down. How she knows this is unknown but it actually happens.
The ghosts catch up and... poof. The dream ends with the protagonist getting up from the ground and realizing it was just a dream, or was it? The "ghosts" might have actually been the police or even the man's own moral conscious, that he will live the rest of his life knowing that he killed those men, who might have once existed, and the lady, or maybe by running from law in a drunken stupor, when all he had to do was come forward. What a tragedy.
I don't remember much about what the second story is about, but I do remember that it is about a traveler who decides to sleep in an inn for the night when it starts to rain. It is a dark inn, with spider webs and rats and the inn keeper is an old woman with a white-paste skin. (Again)
The protagonist starts a fire in the fireplace and after a few minutes just before getting comfortable and dozing off, he hears a moan. "Who's there?" he asks. No answer. And then, another moan; he looks everywhere for the source. Then he notices that it comes from his closet, so he approaches with fire poker in hand and then opens the closet door to find a ghost hiding in there.
Eventually, he and the ghost sit down after some commotion and talk. I don't remember what it was that he said, but now that I think about it, the story might have been a symbolic reference to homosexuality or some other form of internal truth. Hence, the reason he was "haunting" the closet was because he refused to come out, to face the truth of his own existence.
His moaning may have been his own frustration with himself, that he couldn't navigate his life the same way everyone else does. Ergo, he stops haunting the closet and apartment and tries to examine a new world he's never really seen before.
I think there might have been a third story but I also can't remember if there was any to begin with.
The last story is about a deprave drunkard that is mean to everyone, everything, his own pet, even himself. He lives in what could be a skew mole shack. He makes his living as a grave robber and steals any possessions people have taken with them to the grave.
He gets his comeuppance one day, when he falls asleep in a grave after taking a pretty large amount of loot... that is, until a big, robed, dark goblin breaks out of a stone tombstone and drags him into an underground lair where he is forced to drink an elixir from the Chalice of Conscious.
After being forced into seeing and doing things against his will, he sees the errors of his ways and returns to his world, to do better things for himself and mankind for the rest of his life.
Acting: 9/10 Music: 8/10 Story: 9/10 Animation: 8/10 Direction: 9/10 Production Values: 8/10
Overall: 8/10
"Death on Lightning!"
A Parable, told in the form of three symbolic ghost stories
Ghost Stories (1987) was a rather unknown British short movie that was made to entertain (or scare) the young. Though, that doesn't stop it from telling some very adult concepts, either.
In it, our protagonist is a 19th century Englishman is in a group meeting with some friends when the wind howls, blasts open a window, blows out the candles (the only lights in the room), and creates chaos throughout. Fortunately, all become organized and get everything settled. This gets everyone interested in telling some fascinating horror stories, and thus they were told.
The first story is about a buggy entrepreneur going out for a drink (alcohol is a common theme in this movie and if I remember correctly it might have been used in all 3 or 4 stories.) He gets drunk and walks over to a dark, abandoned and very dilapidated apartment, falling back on (and then off) a dark post that has fallen against a dresser, falling asleep.
He dreams of waking up sometime later in the night to the sound of horse hooves and yelps. So he walks outside to see a buggy headsman who has skin the color of a white paste, and two very black horses with red eyes.
He asks to be transported to a restaurant and while waiting in the buggy, he is asked to wait, and a little time later a mysterious woman with a hood and two men who look like former British soldiers enter the buggy too. Their skin is a ghostly white, too, though not everything is at is seems.
These men are acting very strange because their body language suggests that they are actually criminals bent upon doing some nefarious actions. This tips off the protagonist, who follows them to where they're going (a bar, and potential crime ring.)
They enter the bar, which is pretty barren, though one man later goes over to the main character and tells him to leave. The protagonist suggests they are going to rape the woman and this tips off the bad guys who get into battle with our main character. The protagonist wins, and the lady is saved, but apparently these men also have ghosts that are chasing him and the lady down. How she knows this is unknown but it actually happens.
The ghosts catch up and... poof. The dream ends with the protagonist getting up from the ground and realizing it was just a dream, or was it? The "ghosts" might have actually been the police or even the man's own moral conscious, that he will live the rest of his life knowing that he killed those men, who might have once existed, and the lady, or maybe by running from law in a drunken stupor, when all he had to do was come forward. What a tragedy.
I don't remember much about what the second story is about, but I do remember that it is about a traveler who decides to sleep in an inn for the night when it starts to rain. It is a dark inn, with spider webs and rats and the inn keeper is an old woman with a white-paste skin. (Again)
The protagonist starts a fire in the fireplace and after a few minutes just before getting comfortable and dozing off, he hears a moan. "Who's there?" he asks. No answer. And then, another moan; he looks everywhere for the source. Then he notices that it comes from his closet, so he approaches with fire poker in hand and then opens the closet door to find a ghost hiding in there.
Eventually, he and the ghost sit down after some commotion and talk. I don't remember what it was that he said, but now that I think about it, the story might have been a symbolic reference to homosexuality or some other form of internal truth. Hence, the reason he was "haunting" the closet was because he refused to come out, to face the truth of his own existence.
His moaning may have been his own frustration with himself, that he couldn't navigate his life the same way everyone else does. Ergo, he stops haunting the closet and apartment and tries to examine a new world he's never really seen before.
I think there might have been a third story but I also can't remember if there was any to begin with.
The last story is about a deprave drunkard that is mean to everyone, everything, his own pet, even himself. He lives in what could be a skew mole shack. He makes his living as a grave robber and steals any possessions people have taken with them to the grave.
He gets his comeuppance one day, when he falls asleep in a grave after taking a pretty large amount of loot... that is, until a big, robed, dark goblin breaks out of a stone tombstone and drags him into an underground lair where he is forced to drink an elixir from the Chalice of Conscious.
After being forced into seeing and doing things against his will, he sees the errors of his ways and returns to his world, to do better things for himself and mankind for the rest of his life.
Acting: 9/10 Music: 8/10 Story: 9/10 Animation: 8/10 Direction: 9/10 Production Values: 8/10
Overall: 8/10
