Writer: Mike O’Mahoney
Director: Mike O’Mahoney
He has opened the portal… to hell
Ghost Box is a no-budget ghost story written and directed by Mike O’Mahoney.
The story revolves around Mark (Chris Dalbey) who throws in his job to pursue his dream of becoming a ghost hunter and writing a book on his experiences. In the course of his investigations he meets up with recent widow Mrs Ester (Carol Florence) who is experiencing strange occurrences. From her he obtains the titular Ghostbox which he takes home to study. He also begins to investigate the background to the death of Mrs Ester’s husband. Meanwhile, the box starts moving of its own accord…
The film doesn’t start well. After an irrelevant pre-credit sequence we skip to Mark and his friends shooting the breeze. The first few minutes are simply one big infodump setting the scene. It’s very clumsy writing and the back-story could easily and more efficiently have been incorporated into the action.
However once things get going I found the story surprisingly interesting. It builds nicely to a dramatically satisfying ending. Which is fortunate because there’s not a lot of atmosphere or scares here – direction is pedestrian and uninspired.
Acting is always an issue with a low budget indie. Chris Dalbey has most of the screen time in Ghost Box and he’s… ok. Unfortunately he’s probably only the third best actor in the small cast. Head and shoulders above the rest is Carol Florence with her excellent portrayal of Mrs Ester.
So there’s a decent little story here, but Ghost Box doesn’t really do it justice. Florence’s performance makes it watchable, but only just.