Arriving on Digital August 26
Terror Films Channel Sept 2 and Kings of Horror Sep 9.
I can’t help but wonder if writer/director Timothy Stevens knew about The Brown Mountain lights of North Carolina when he wrote the screenplay to The Ghost Lights? The idea to explain where they come from is great, but that’s not where this movie goes. Instead, his film takes viewers in for a different ride.
The flashbacks which make up the bulk of this film hint at something sinister about those lights. Cinematically, I particularly liked the shift to a black and white presentation. It gives the narrative a bit of noir.
The tale presented here goes beyond the smuggling of Mexicans across the United States border. The illegal alien agenda may suggest something else about these ghost lights. They could be a wormhole instead of just a signal flare. I’m merely guessing, but to wonder where Aurthur (John Francis McCullagh) went, and the people referenced in the interviews he’s conducted, is the mystery his daughter Alex (Katreeva Phillips) has to investigate.
This woman has the skills for it. As an investigative journalist, solving this case can help her career. She goes home, despite everyone in her family saying don’t. After her father died, and she missed the funeral, her kin stopped speaking to her. Determined, she arrives at her father’s somewhat empty house to find nothing. The only two relics she discovers are an old Smith-Corona typewriter and a tape cassette labelled “The Ghost Lights.”
I soon wondered if I had finally found the ideal found footage movie in The Ghost Lights. Although what that recording reveals is not in video format, what’s discovered is perfect. We’re watching Alex trying to figure out what became of dad from her perspective. As she continues listening to the tape, what’s revealed gets more telling. Soon, we learn what has become of her father.
What’s heard is a tale about Pops wanting to connect to the universe. In what he uncovers about E.T.’s and the cosmos isn’t all that scary, but in Alex’s case, it’s concerning her relationship with his father. And if she can face his ghost, then she’ll never be able to forge ahead either. What she has to deal with is facing those regrets as they manifest, hence the title, and this seed of an idea is all the horror we need.
3 Spirits out of 5
The Ghost Lights Trailer
