“Ghosts of War” Film Review
By: Joseph Perry (Twitter)
Ghosts of War is a horror film focused on five World War II soldiers tasked with holding down a French chateau once inhabited by Nazi higher-ups. The company they relieve is none too slow about leaving the place, and the soldiers — along with the film’s viewers — soon find out that they need to confront supernatural goings-on along with living German troops.
Chris (Brenton Thwaites of The Signal and Oculus) leads his squad consisting of Butchie (Alan Ritchson of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows), Eugene (Skylar Astin), Tappert (Kyle Gallner of The Cleanse) and Kirk (Theo Rossi of Luke Cage) on the assignment. Along the way, they encounter a vehicle full of German soldiers (Billy Zane plays the leader) and later a group of Jewish refugees. Once inside the chateau, strange occurrences spook the troops, and events grow more dangerous as the men try to unravel the mystery of what happened inside the building.
Writer/director Eric Bress (The Butterfly Effect) has crafted a marvelously acted, beautifully shot effort that features a third active that is bound to be divisive. The five leads all turn in fine, believable performances that are the strongest suit of Ghosts of War. Bress does a solid job of building suspense and mystery, especially in the first two acts. Lorenzo Senatore (the 2019 version of Hellboy) captures the proceedings splendidly.
Bress takes a big gamble with the third act that felt jarring to me, but it certainly didn’t lose me. I’ll leave it at that so as to avoid spoiler territory. The supernatural forces hinted at in the title are more effective when shown in shadow or in shots that leave viewers and characters wandering what they just saw, and less so in CG-rendered jump-scare scenes. The film also offers up some gruesome, well-done practical makeup effects.
Ghosts of War is an unusual fear-fare effort that takes chances, and that focuses on wartime and PTSD drama rather effectively. Recommended, the film is available on Demand and Digital from July 17.
Joseph Perry is one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast (whenitwascool.com/up-hill-both-ways-podcast/) and Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast (decadesofhorror.com/category/classicera/). He also writes for the film websites Diabolique Magazine (diaboliquemagazine.com), Gruesome Magazine (gruesomemagazine.com), The Scariest Things (scariesthings.com), Ghastly Grinning (ghastlygrinning.com), and Horror Fuel (horrorfuel.com), and film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope (videoscopemag.com) and Drive-In Asylum (etsy.com/shop/GroovyDoom).
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