Dave Mccoy knows nothing 
I am not sure what film he was watching, but i was lucky enough to see it in the theater when it came out and many times on tape after. I still watch it every year at halloween. Yes i admit it seems slow at times but at the end everything comes together . A great film with some great old stars.
Much better than many of the reviews indicate! 
A great cast of real pros make this a well acted movie. A story that hangs together by one of our better writters couple with good solid production makes this a pleasure to watch. It isn't a gore fest, hack 'em up but a good old fashion drama that bulds to an excellent ending.
Buy this one, you are hard pressed to do better!
HOT, GORY SST
Ghost Story is an interesting horror movie that could have been better. Despite the perpetual nudity in the middle of this motion picture, it is apparent that several scenes and minutes were edited from the original script. It is understandable why the ghost was seeking revenge but how and why she took the avenues she did to attempt her revenge albeit retribution for the wrongs committed decades before left me filling in several holes.
Much discussion has been focused on corpses and rotting flesh, and quite a bit of it is featured. However, another central theme is the disastrous consequences that can result from succumbing to the proverbial weaknesses of the flesh.
Don Wanderley, the protagonist, is a well-educated but an apparently financially insecure individual who initially is on the right track teaching literature courses at a small liberal arts college, a location where just as he is forming a relationship with an academic contemporary he, unfortunately, also meets the dean's new secretary, who turns out to be the evil ghost, on her first day at work.
The secretary, who later introduces herself as Alma Mobley, is played by the elegant Alice Krige and is a siren who occupies Wanderley's mind immediately upon their first encounter. By the end of the day, Wanderley and Mobley have gone out on a dinner date that leads to a night of passionate lovemaking.
After that evening, Wanderley's life is headed for a downward spiral. As the story develops, he has by and large abandoned his academic responsibilities as well as the aforementioned female colleague who might have complemented him as a spouse. Mobley, that woman who quickly entered his life thanks to her alluring physical traits, is starting to make lifestyle demands, which are ultimately disclosed as pieces of a long range plan to, in ghostly form, avenge her murder that was committed fifty years before and was kept secret by and among four gentleman, one of whom was Wanderley's father.
And as the demands increase, the more eerie and apparently psychotic Wanderley finds Alma Mobley to be. As events transpire, Wanderley, having finally seen a destructive pattern that has suddely invaded and overtaken his life, is in a quagmire. He resolves to rectify his situations, and upon action realizes that in spite of the destruction that has already been incurred, much more trouble, which will include scenes of murder, will lie ahead.
Furthermore, the movie adaptation of Ghost Story is a moral tale in its own right. It is very understandable why Wanderley, especially being a young, single man, surrendered so easily to the temptations of Alma. However, he ended up becoming involved with a woman who, to the degree that she was attractive physically, was, to the same extent, unattractive psychologically.
All in all, Ghost Story is an ultimately disturbing personification of why beauty is more than skin deep and why one should never judge anything merely at the surface level, especially when there is so much at stake!
A little too much 'in your face.'
A very fine ghost story, as was the book, with a great cast. The only flaw, and it's formidable, is the occasional appearance of the ghost as a rotting corpse. The best ghost stories infer, hint, tease. For instance, the original film version of "The Haunting" was so much creepier than the second one. Despite the flaw, I enjoy "Ghost Story" and recommend it be watched in the comfort of a warm house on a cold winter night.
OK Ghost Story .............. 
The 1981 film GHOST STORY is watchable and has a somewhat compelling albeit predictable storyline. Alice Krige is bewitchingly mysterious as Eva/Alma though a lot of unresolved questions remain about who or what her character actually is and what provokes her to seek revenge fifty years after the original incident. There are also a couple of other sinister characters (Fenny and Gregory) who are really just bit players in the movie but apparently play a large part in the book. The movie makers might have well just cut them out since they add very little but confusion to the film. Fred Astaire is the best of the four over seventy years old actors in the movie (the others are John Houseman, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Melvyn Douglas and they are adequate but not great). The filmmakers do do a good job of invoking a small New England town in winter but I didn't find the movie particularly scary though granted I watched it on my PC on a sunny afternoon. Like some other reviewers I found Alice Krige and Craig Wasson's nude scenes to be unnecessary and these scenes actually detracted from the credibility of the entire movie. The movie and other reviewer's comments did leave me intrigued enough to find a copy of Peter Straub's novel the film is adapted from at the library this morning and check it out.
reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
ghost story, ghost, story
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based on 84 reviews
