Harry Price: Ghost Hunter (2015)

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

I can upon this tv show by accident, never heard of it or Harry Price. I read the reviews, some negative and a few positives. I'm glad to say I'm glad I watched it. The story is not based on Harry Price life, it's not a biography. Writers used his character and wrote a story for entertaining purposes. Would have liked to see this made into a TV series.

Rafe Spall plays 'ghost hunter' Harry Price. In the wake of World War I many people had lost loved ones and could not reconcile the senseless waste that had occurred and wanted to be able to speak to them beyond the grave. This included the very high and very low in society. In order to fill the void a mini industry took off of mediums and psychics who used all manner of tricks and scams to exploit their grief. Harry Price is in this field and is contacted by a high profile MP whose wife has had a bit of a 'turn' and come over all unnecessary; she in turn claims that their new home, an erstwhile 'workhouse', is haunted. He is called in to investigate and prevent the poor woman from being hauled off to the sanatorium – posh word for mad house.Now this is a TV film but has very high production values for the most part. There was some wobble camera at the beginning but that seemed to calm down – much to my relief. The acting is all top notch and a real chemistry builds between Price and the maid Sarah played by the wonderful Cara Theobold. There are some really spooky bits but this is essentially a detective story with psychic overtones and I must say I greatly enjoyed it. I hope they make some more - recommended.

One of the delights of coming to a series "cold," so to speak, without any knowledge of who the "real" Harry Price, is that we can approach it on its own terms as an example of a mystery thriller without speculating about whether it is "true" or "untrue" to the historical past, whatever that means.This is certainly the case with HARRY PRICE: GHOST HUNTER. The real Harry Price (1881-1948) gained a reputation as someone using the then innovative sciences of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis to understand the human mind as well as expose fraudulent mediums who spent a lot of their time touring music-halls and playing on ordinary people's gullibilities. Alex Pillai's production includes one such sequence where our eponymous hero (Rafe Spall) interrupts a performance given by Monsieur Lutrec (Simon Gregor), and ends up hitting the fraud on the chin backstage.Yet the historical material should not be allowed to obstruct a good story. As with most investigator-heroes, the television Harry has a past; haunted by the specter of his dead spouse, he spends most of his evenings dreaming at his dreary home. İt is only when he encounters spry ladies' maid Sarah Grey (Cara Theobold) that he decides to slough off his depression and look forward once more with fortitude. Having himself been involved in fraudulent activity, he decides now to devote himself to the cause of truth in unmasking other frauds.The production manages some side-swipes at manipulative politicians such as Sir Charles (Michael Byrne) who is so preoccupied with getting his protégé Edward Goodwin (Tom Ward) elected as the new leader of the Liberal Party that he is prepared to go to any lengths to achieve his aims. The fact that Edward turns out to be a sleazy character whose faults are unmasked at the end is simply poetic justice.As with most period dramas, the settings of early Twenties London are meticulously recreated, even though it seems that every sequence - whether interior or exterior - seems to have been shot using a smoke filter. The story is little slow to get going, with perhaps too many swooping pans and unexpected zooms at the beginning designed to create a spooky ambiance. On the other hand the ending is cleverly staged through Sarah's point of view as she recovers consciousness, having been ruthlessly felled by Edward. MPs will do anything, it seems, to assert power over women.

As another reviewer has noted, HARRY PRICE: GHOST HUNTER has absolutely NOTHING to do with the real-life paranormal investigator. It gets the era right but that's about it. What we have here is the usual lefty period drama nonsense, with a miscast and poorly acting Rafe Spall full of the usual mannerisms and the like but failing to convince for a second as the real Price.I would have enjoyed this immensely had it followed some of Price's real-life cases, like the mongoose or Borley Rectory. Instead, we get involved in some nonsense involving a guy's wife who keeps having ghostly visions. They also shoehorn a black guy into the story in a ridiculous show of tokenism. The plotting is slow and dull and the characters are quite laughable, but the biggest regret is that Price is so unrecognisable. Spall looks nothing like him and acts nothing like him, so why they bothered pretending that he was Price I don't know. Without the Harry Price hook I probably would have rated this higher, but as it stands it's a kick in the teeth for any fan of the supernatural.