Ghostland
2018 · Directed by Pascal Laugier
Original language: English
- horror
The story
A mother of two inherits a home from her aunt. On the first night in the new home she is confronted with murderous intruders and fights for her daughters’ lives. Sixteen years later the daughters reunite at the house, and that is when things get strange...
What it’s like
Hard, bright daylight gives way to a claustrophobic, sweat-soaked dark in this French-Canadian horror, which moves from a sunlit suburban house to a cramped basement. The camera stays close and restless during the home invasion, then settles into unsettling, dreamlike stillness as the story loosens its grip on what is real. Palettes shift from cool, faded domestic tones to murky greys and sickly lamplight, and the soundtrack leans on sustained drones and sudden silences. The pacing is punishing, with long stretches of dread followed by sharp bursts of brutality. Violence is explicit, prolonged and physically harrowing, including torture, blood, and graphic injury, and the psychological cruelty lands as hard as the gore. Themes of trauma, hallucination and fractured identity run beneath it. This suits viewers who want an intense, uncompromising late-night watch and can tolerate brutal, sustained violence. It is not a gentle or comforting film.
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