The Green Man

Stars: Albert Finney (Tom Jones, Miller's Crossing), Sarah Berger, Linda Marlowe. This overrated cable thriller based on a Kingsley Amis novel stars Albert Finney as Maurice Allington, an alcoholic innkeeper who regales his guests with ghost stories. To Maurice's surprise, a ghost suddenly appears mid-tale one evening. Embarking on some serious detective work, Maurice discovers that his daughter's life is in danger from a dead lecher. Although logic is not a particularly strong suit in a horror film, one still expects a reasonably coherent storyline in a film that boasts a strong British pedigree. However, with the exception of Finney's always commanding stage presence, The Green Man is a disappointing pastiche of narrative threads which seem to go nowhere. Opening with a grisly grabber--a young woman walking through the forest becomes tree bait (similar to The Guardian)--the film is always on the lookout for some lever of sensationalism to pull: nubile adolescence, horny ghosts, couplings in the great outdoors, and ménage a trois's. But the combination of low budget and video camerawork make The Green Man look rather silly (in one unintentionally funny scene, Finney fights what appears to be a 50 cent toy bat in his bathtub). Basically what we have here is British television trying to be both scary and sexy, and missing the boat on both counts. Audience: Upscale types who want junk but wouldn't be caught dead renting a Full Moon production.