The Ghoul Movie Review

Trailer here.

The Ghoul is a 1975 horror film directed by Freddie Francis and starring Peter Cushing, John Hurt, Alexandra Bastedo and Veronica Carlson.

The film is set in the 1920's. A young woman called Daphne(Carlson) hears a voice calling for help. She sees a man who has hung himself. It is all a prank by her friends. They are having a party. Daphne has a boyfriend called Geoffrey(Ian McCulloch) and he wants to race his pal. They drive off into a fog. They get lost and run out of petrol. Daphne tells him to go and find some. She is left alone in the car. Someone is there, watching her. Daphne gets out of the car and goes looking for her boyfriend. A man comes alone and he asks her if he can help. She tells him no. She comes to a house but the man tells her not to go up there. He says that it is empty. She is spooked and runs up there. He hits her on the head with a rock.

Daphne wakes up in a shack. The man is there. His name is Tom(Hurt).He tells her that he didn't want her to go up to the house. She tries to escape and he chases her. She meets another man called Doctor Lawrence(Cushing). She tells him what happened. He offers her tea and a room to sleep in so she can recover. Tom is the gardener. Geoffrey's pal is stuck in his car. Tom decides to push it off a cliff. He just laughs. Dr. Lawrence tells Daphne about his life. He was in India. He was a priest. His wife and son were part of some odd religion. She wants to go, but he tells her that she has to wait until the fog lifts. There is a weird housekeeper called Ayah. That night, Daphne is killed by someone. The weird housekeeper cuts up her body. Dr. Lawrence seems to be in on it.

The police find Geoffrey's pal.  Geoffrey identifies the body. He wants to find Daphne. The police don't seem interested in finding her. He looks around while a friend, Angela(Bastedo) drives to the house. She almost crashes into Tom and she gets knocked out. She wakes up in his shack. Tom tells her that she isn't leaving. Geoffrey comes to the house and he enters. He gets caught by Dr. Lawrence. He finds one of Daphne's buttons and he knows that something is wrong. Lawrence lies and tells him that she got the bus. He also says that Angela probably did too. Geoffrey leaves, but he isn't happy. Tom tells Lawrence about Angela. She knows too much. Lawrence tells him to bring her up to the house. Angela fights against Tom.

Geoffrey hasn't left. He finds Tom's shack. He asks for help with his car. He also asks him some questions about Daphne. Tom won't answer. Geoffrey chases him. He falls into the marsh. Tom also falls in. Geoffrey gets out but Tom is stuck. Geoffrey asks him about Daphne and he confesses that there is a monster in the house and it needs to be fed. It eats human flesh. That is why Daphne was killed. Geoffrey confronts Lawrence. Lawrence breaks down and he says that the monster is his son. Geoffrey goes into the room where it is but gets killed by Ayah. Tom somehow survived being stuck in the marsh. He is after Angela. The monster is on the loose and it kills Tom after Angela bashes him with a statue. Lawrence shoots the monster and then himself as Angela escapes.

This is a decent film. Cushing is great in his part, as always. The story is good. It is a little light on horror, but that's okay. It is directed by Freddie Francis who gave us so many great films such as Paranoiac, The Evil of Frankenstein, Dracula Has Risen From The Grave and many more. The acting is pretty good overall. Hurt pays the part of the creepy gardener well and Cushing plays a villain with his usual flair. I recommend this to fans of Cushing and 70's film. I hadn't heard anything about this before I watched it. I don't ever see much about it so if you can find it, it is worth a watch. I will give it a 5/10.