Incident in a Ghostland (2018)

“A mother of two who inherits a house is confronted with murderous intruders on the first night in their new home and fights for her daughters’ lives. Sixteen years later when the daughters reunite at the house, things get really strange.” (IMDb)

Now this is a perfect example of how sometimes you sit down to watch a film you’ve heard nothing about and have no expectations from, then get much more than you bargained for. Incident in a Ghostland a.k.a. Ghostland, no matter what you call it, is one of those films that if you have heard very little about and have not seen a trailer for, hits you like a tonne of bricks.

The one thing that stuck with me most is the tension that grabs you in the beginning and holds you pretty much all the way to the very end. The film feels so suffocating and distressing in such a way that it keeps you invested in what happens to the main characters. Many films try to do this and succeed to varying levels. This one does it better than most.

Director Pascal Laugier has done this to varying degrees himself in the past, highly successfully in the cult classic Martyrs (2008) and less successfully but adequately in The Tall Man (2012). Ghostland does not have the same grit and is not as consistent as Martyrs, but is still a great effort.

Highly successful French singer Mylene Farmer (Giorgino) turns to acting once more and succeeds in leaving her mark on this film as a lioness of a mother, defending her girls. Emilia Jones (Residue 2015, Brimstone, TV’s Utopia) and Crystal Reed (Skyline, Crush, TV’s Teen Wolf and Gotham) star as the young and older versions of Beth, while Taylor Hickson (Deadpool, Residue 2017, TV’s Aftermath) and Anastasia Phillips (Don’t Talk to Irene, TV’s Skins, Stoked, Bomb Girls and Lucky 7) portray both versions of her sister, Vera. All do a great job in convincing the viewer of the plight that befalls these girls and drawing much concern for their well-being from the viewers.

Kevin Power (Horsemen) and Rob Archer (A Christmas Horror Story, Darken, Trench 11) create characters that exist only in the darkest of nightmares and do very well in memorable performances, which promise to make the viewer, at the very least, uncomfortable.

There were a couple of decisions which I thought were questionable and slowed the story down a little to my taste  in spots, but I found that they did not interfere much with my overall viewing experience. Laugier should be applauded for creating one of the better horror films that I have seen in a long time. If you haven’t heard of this one yet, I recommend that you go straight to watching it.

A pleasant, and unpleasant in the best of ways, surprise. 7.5/10.