GHOSTS THAT STILL WALK (1977)
Article 5013 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-9-2015
Directed by James T. Flocker
Featuring Ann Nelson, Matthew Boston, Jerry Jensen
Country: USA
What it is: Ghostly possession movie

A psychiatrist/hypnotist investigates the case of a boy who is suffering from strange pains which seem to have no physical cause… and whose relatives undergo traumatic, near-fatal experiences.

Don’t let the title fool you; it may sound like it’s pseudodocumentary on parapsychology, but it’s just a straightforward horror film. Still, I’m not sure the ghost does all that much walking; he spends most of the first half of the movie tooling around in a motor home he has taken over. I’ve encountered director James T. Flocker before, and if the ratings on IMDB are any indication, this is the best movie I’ve seen from him yet. Which is not to say that he doesn’t have the usual set of problems; the script is weakly written, the acting never quite achieves competence, and he seems to have no ability to tell when his scenes have run on too long. Yet, there’s a creative spark here that can’t be obscured by these flaws; there’s something original and engaging about his ideas. And this movie does have one very effective sequence in which the motor home is attacked by big rocks that seem to be moving of their own accord, and given what must have been the miniscule budget of this movie, I’m amazed that he pulls off the special effects; I’m really at a loss to explain how he did it. Granted, it does go on too long (like the other scenes in the movie), but I’m still a bit impressed. It’s moments like these which really make me wish that Flocker was a better director than he was.