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The Ghoul (1975)

Dir: Freddie Francis

A young Woman (Veronica Carlson) stumbles across an isolated house after the car she was in during a road race breaks down.
There she meets the owner (Peter Cushing), his sinister ex army Gardner (John Hurt) and his mysterious Indian Housekeeper (Alexandra Bastedo).
A dark and tragic family secret awaits her…

 

The biggest problem with this film is the needlessly overlong build up.
The whole 'hanging' opening, the long car race and the annoying 'upper class' chitter-chatter all help to slow the film down in the worst possible way.
Even when we get to the house things don't pick up.
Yet again a long lead up is upon us, which would be okay as it sets the story up, but to have it right after the initial drawn out start means it simply becomes frustrating.

The 'ghoul' (played as well as can be expected given the role by Don Henderson, who would later become a favourite on UK TV in "Strangers", its off-shoot "Bullman" and the ill-fated "Paradise Club") is also a let down.
The character has a nice, grizzly build-up, and I am a sucker for these 'Loony Toons Family Member locked In A Room And Drooling' stories.
But the final revelation is simply a very sad, grime caked looking person with nothing actually scary about it.
Now, I know that vastly superior 'Loony on the Loose' films like "Death Line" and "Tower of Evil" feature varying degrees of 'feel sorry for me' psychos...but they pull this difficult mixture of tragic character and nasty, scary psycho, off too much better effect.
Somehow (and I am trying to decide how, but I can't put my finger on it) "The Ghoul" fails at this and the killer simply becomes a letdown.

This 'sadness' also seeps into the whole film.
The atmosphere of the house, the other characters, all have this air of sadness, loss and personal tragedy.

Cushing is the main example of this as his real life Wife (who he was completely devoted to) had passed away about 3 years before and it seems like he is not really acting here. His character's emotions seem to be simply his own.
It becomes hard to watch the character as the final stages of his heartbreak unfolds before us, as it seems like we are watching a very private and personal period of grieving for Cushing himself. Indeed the picture of his character's Wife is that of his own Wife and supposedly there were times where Cushing really broke down while doing the scenes.
And even if you didn't know this about Cushing, the tragic air that follows the character around, plus the general morbid tone of the rest of the film (along with the dragging build up) all help to make the movie very hard going.

Director Freddie Francis could have saved things here, by moving the proceedings along; using some imaginative set ups and exciting confrontations. But sadly his work here is lifeless and he obviously has little interest in the project.
It does have some worthwhile elements though, not least of which (though again they add to the extremely down and bleak feel to the film) are some unexpected deaths that on a first view jolt the viewer and also supply some much needed gore.

Ian McCulloch ("Zombi 2", "Contamination") is nicely stoic and his character is an effective, hard faced, get on with the job at hand, hero. And it's a shame he was not used more, and sooner.
Carlson is less effective in the acting stakes, but her character helps create the films initial emotional backbone, and the set up certainly owes a debt to Hitchcock's "Psycho".
Full marks as well to Hurt and Bastedo (best known for "The Blood Spattered Bride") for their expertly melodramatic 'villain' roles.
Hurt especially adds more depth to his unstable character than the film ultimately deserves.

But overall (despite some effective atosphere and occasional shocks) "The Ghoul" is a film that is just too wrapped up in its cheapness, its needlessly drawn-out opening, laboured pacing and it's own suffocating morbidity.