The Ghoul (2017): A very British Horror Film bringing to mind both Kill List and A Dark Ritual among other recent works. Chris (Tom Meeten),an ex-cop is recruited by a detective Jim (Dan Skinner) and profiler Kathleen (Alice Lowe) to help investigate the murder of two psychotherapists. The main suspect is Coulson (Rufus Jones),their landlord; Chris moves to London and goes undercover to trail him. Finding that Coulson has himself gone into psychotherapy after the incident, Chris feigns depression and is referred to Coulson's psychotherapist, Dr Fisher (Niamh Cusack).

The narrative then takes a strange twist as Chris tells Fisher that he is unemployed but often daydreams that he is assisting the police as an undercover operative. Indeed he meets with both Kathleen and Jim (a couple) who are his friends from university but they are respectively a teacher and a drinks sales rep. Dr Fisher falls ill and both Coulson and Chris (who in the meantime have become acquaintances) have a new therapist: Dr Morland (Geoffrey McGivern). It is difficult to tell which sequence of events experienced by Chris is the real one as he seems to fall further into existenial despair. Was he ever even a policeman? He has also carried a torch for Kathleen since their college days.

A dark film which mixes elements of Chaos Magick in with time loops and psychological terror. Director and writer Gareth Tunley has added to the Canon of New British Horror with this drama which delivers a few twists and surprises. 8/10.

If you just have one small part of you that loves (and maybe craves?) small and low budget movies with interesting ideas, you will like this - very much. The filmmakers say that they themselves were motivated by Nolans "Following" (which in itself was the basis for Memento),making movies without or almost no budget.

Now while you may be able to tell in some regards, I don't think it is too obvious overall. And the story is intriguing to say the least. Beginning with one thing and then pulling that rug underneath our feet and being something else ... or is it? Now I don't think or would claim to have all the answers, but the movie is open for interpretation. Acting is more than rock solid and the tension is being kept at least until the movie ends ... maybe it carries even over (?)

Seems to me the most frequent complaint about this film is that it is 'slow and boring' and the most positive that it is like Mulholland Drive. The latter comparison, is falsely made, I guess, because the film is complicated and the former remark simply because this tends to be the fallback option if there are not enough explosions. If anything the film moves too fast for its own good. The dialogue is excellent, full of provocative thoughts and human insights but a lot is expected of the viewer and it is easy to get left behind. The therapy sessions should be an opportunity for things to slow down and for us to get our bearings and sort out what is real or not to us and perhaps more pertinently what is real or not to the characters. But nothing is as simple as it appears here and even the sessions seem to take us into even darker areas. Excellent, but not the easiest film to follow because it does not set out a simple path. For those for whom that sounds 'boring', I guess will find it boring. Not sure what that proves though.