[Film Review] A Ghost Waits (2020)

Content warning: Although not mentioned in the article, this film includes depictions of suicide that some might find triggering.

Boy meets girl. Girl tries to scare boy into fleeing home in terror. Boy stays and falls in love with girl instead. 

With this unique take on the standard narrative formula from director Adam Stovall and his co-writer MacLeod Andrews, A Ghost Waits becomes a masterful micro budget horror film-cum-romantic comedy. The charming leads, inventive story, and resourceful craftsmanship turn this intriguing blend of genres into a poignant study of love, identity, and the things that make life worth living. 

Jack (MacLeod Andrews) is inspecting his boss’ rental house after its occupants have left suddenly, breaking their lease and leaving all their belongings behind. Jack is puzzled, especially since this particular house has faced the same issue in the past. The viewer, on the other hand, knows exactly why no one stays in the house for long. The opening scene introduces us to Muriel (Natalie Walker), a “spectral agent” (i.e., ghost) haunting the house. It’s her job in the afterlife to make sure no one takes up residence in her house, and she’s quite good at it. She meets her match when Jack shows up, however. No matter how many creaking doors, disembodied voices, or nightmares filled with existential dread that she throws at him, he refuses to leave the house until his work is done. The longer he stays, the more trouble he causes for Muriel at the agency where she works… and the more the two develop feelings for each other.

A Ghost Waits plays with horror and romance tropes, cleverly exploring both genres through comedic moments that skirt the edge of meta humor but never veer into parody. The film seems to be setting up an enemies-to-lovers plot at first, with Muriel going so far as to proclaim, “We are enemies!” Jack refuses to see it that way and foils Muriel’s plans to wage war against him, subverting the trope with his genial sweetness and fundamentally kind nature. Muriel is the unstoppable force: she is the most successful spectral agent with the best haunting record in the office. Jack, however, is the immovable object: his calm dedication to his job and unquenchable curiosity render him unhauntable. He is fascinated by all the questions — some highly metaphysical, some hilariously mundane — that Muriel’s existence raises. She is fascinated by his fascination. He’s not afraid of her. Rather, he wants to get to know her as a person, and she is charmed by his ability to see her for who she is rather than as a terrifying amorphous presence or as a cog in a bureaucratic machine. 

That bureaucracy comes into play when Jack refuses to leave the house. Muriel’s supervisor Ms. Henry (Amanda Miller) decides to send in a younger agent to help Muriel with her pesky human problem. The new ghost is Rosie (Sydney Vollmer), a teen girl who died of drowning but adopts the look of a stereotypical summer camp slasher victim because she thinks it will be scarier. Her methods are “crass,” according to Muriel; rather than determining a person’s deepest fear and exploiting it, as Muriel does, Rosie’s method of haunting relies solely on fake blood and jump scares. Rosie repeatedly startles Jack — in one of the film’s most meta moments, he asks himself, “Why did I even jump? I knew she was gonna be there” — but he reassures the envious Muriel that Rosie’s scares are shallow and mean nothing. 

As with most great cinematic romances, the viewer falls in love with the main characters as they fall in love with each other. Appropriately enough for a ghost story, Jack and Muriel’s apparitional meet cute unfolds gradually, like a spectre fading into view in a shadowy corner of a room. When they finally sit down and get to know each other, the viewer can almost pinpoint the exact moment that each character falls for the other. It’s a swooningly romantic scene sold almost entirely by the faces of the magnetic leads. MacLeod Andrews is particularly strong; his Jack is the horror genre’s answer to Lloyd Dobler, bursting with self-effacing humor, kindness, and a warm smile that penetrates Muriel’s stony exterior. 

As Jack and Muriel discover each other, they also realize how empty their lives actually are. They only have their meaningless jobs to occupy them. Jack tells Muriel, “I don’t know why I do what I do,” but it could just as easily be Muriel speaking about her own personal purgatory. Both characters go along with their monotonous existences because that’s what you do to survive in this world. The disarming wistfulness of their bond and their mutual ennui becomes more and more heartbreaking as it becomes clear that this unstoppable force and this immovable object can’t possibly stay together. The ironic optimism of the bittersweet ending underscores the film’s central message that love is what gives life meaning. 

A Ghost Waits is a triumph. This obvious labor of love has a unique and unified vision that represents the best of indie horror. The comedy crackles, the horror unnerves, and the romance takes the viewer’s breath away. The mournful undertone will speak to anyone who feels like they’re floating through life rather than actually living it. The finale — exemplified by the dedication “to those who make us feel less alone” — will give an aching hope to those who remain open to it. 

A Ghost Waits is available now from Arrow Video.

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