Colleen and her two teenage daughters Beth and Vera are traveling to their recently deceased aunt’s house which they have inherited. On their way to the house, which is placed in a very secluded area, they stop by a gas station where Beth reads an article about some recent home invasions where parents have been killed, and daughters spared. When driving towards the house, they are being stalked by some people driving a candy truck. They barely have time to settle in the strange house which is filled with dolls and odd knickknacks, when a huge mentally impaired man (Fat Man) an a transvestite (Candy Truck Woman) breaks into the house and attack them. Vera is assaulted by the Fat Man, while Beth tries to escape but is captured by the Candy Truck Woman who says “We just wanna play with dolls“. The intrudes are then killed by Colleen.
Fast forward sixteen years later, Beth has become a successful horror writer and lives in Chicago with her husband and son. Her new novel is titled Incident in a Ghostland, and she appears on a talk show to promote it and says that it’s based on what happened that night. Later, she receives a phonecall from her sister Vera, who begs her to return to the house. Vera and Colleen have been living there ever since the incident, and Vera has since been unable to recover from the trauma. When Beth arrives back at the house, she finds that Vera is still tormented by Fat Man and Candy Truck Woman.
Ghostland (aka Incident in a Ghostland) is a psychological horror film from 2018, written and directed by Pascal Laugier (Martyrs, The Tall Man). It’s a movie that at first seems to be very straightforward, and then proves to be something completely different. It’s also a movie where you should avoid any spoilers, as they may potentially ruin some of the experience, because there are a fair amount of twists and turns here.
Ghostland plays heavily on making the surroundings as strange and atmospheric as possible, with the deceased aunt’s house filled with creepy dolls and dark hallways. The characters are pretty good, but best of all are of course the villains. The Candy Truck Woman (played by Kevin Power) and the Fat Man (played by Rob Archer) looks like some kind of fantasy-nightmare where Marilyn Manson has teamed up with Goonies-Sloth’s big bad brother. It’s also quite fitting how the two sisters, where Vera is grounded in reality while Beth has her feet more planted into fairytaleland, describe the murderers in the way they see them: Beth’s version of them is “a witch and an ogre“, while Vera’s true to nature description is simply “two men in a fucking truck!“ where both are actually a fitting description for the menaced killers. Personally, I guess I would have gone for “witch“ and “ogre“ too…
There was an unfortunate real incident in this ghostland: the actress who played Vera, Taylor Hickson, got a permanent facial disfigurement during the shooting of the film, for which she sued the film’s production company over due to lost work as a result of her permanent scars.
Ghostland does have some disturbing moments, which shouldn’t come as a surprise since it’s made by the same guy who gave us Martyrs. Despite its somewhat Halloween-ish looks it’s far from being a comfort-horror due to the sexual abuse and psychological terror the girls are going through, but it is a suspenseful and twisty movie with a lot of atmosphere, and I recommend going in blindly if you want to check it out.
Writers and director: Pascal Laugier
Country & year: Canada/France, 2018
Also known as: Ghostland
Actors: Crystal Reed, Mylène Farmer, Anastasia Phillips, Emilia Jones, Taylor Hickson, Kevin Power, Rob Archer, Mariam Bernstein, Alicia Johnston, Ernesto Griffith, Adam Hurtig, Denis Cozzi
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6195094/
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