In what would seem to be a no-budget gender-reversal reconceptualizing of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, this indie horror-comedy by writer-director Adam Stovall isn’t short on ideas (although the film itself is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it affair at 79 mins), especially cleverly rendered supernatural effects on an obvious penny-pinching budget.
The movie’s premise sounds like just another hackneyed old haunted-house yarn: handyman Jack (McLeod Andrews) finds himself renovating a house that’s seen a long succession of tenants flee the place because of some spooky unexplained phenomena inside it. As Jack finds out soon enough, it’s a female ghost (or, as she pretentiously insists on being referred to, “spectral agent”) named Muriel (Natalie Walker) who’s been guarding the house on behalf of the astral plane.
It’s never quite clear why this fetching female apparition, who looks as she’s just popped up out of a Tim Burton sketchbook, takes a liking to Jack. With clearly no regard for boundaries of physical and metaphysical that separate them, this odd couple exchange witty, flirty banter and some pretty interesting ideas about the meaning of life and whether such a relationship has much of a future, not least because Muriel holds down a 9 to 5 position in what would seem to be the Spirit World version of conformist corporate America. But even this rather unusual commitment doesn’t seem to phase Jack, who seems quite taken in with the idea of dating an authentic Goth.
Despite the film’s considerable flaws, it’s really the two up-and-coming lead actors here, Andrews and Walker, who manage to make A Ghost Waits at least a sporadically watchable film. Andrews plays the bewildered factotum Jack with appropriate apprehension and bewilderment. While Walker is wholly believable as the house-sitting wraith who takes a shine to Jack’s life of the flesh. Sadly, though, this supernaturalist fantasy just doesn’t live up to its hyphenated status: it’s not really scary enough to live up to its “horror” label and not quite funny enough to merit the “comedy” badge either. A strong optional purchase.