Ghostland

Ghostland is an independent French-Canadian feature film of the psycho-thriller genre. It was written and directed by Pascal Laugier. It was produced by 5656 Films, Mars Films, and Logical Pictures in association with Manitoba Film & Music. It was distributed through Incident Productions and Vertical Entertainment. The movie premiered at the Gerardmer Fantasy Film Festival in France on February 3rd, 2018. It received a theatrical release in France on March 14th. It was released in the United States on June 22nd, 2018.

Plot
A single mother named Pauline and her two teenage daughters, Beth and Vera, inherit an old manor house from a deceased aunt. While driving to their new home, the daughters bicker with one another, and Vera chastises her younger sister Beth, over her enthusiasm at pursuing a dream as a horror writer. As they drive, a candy truck with two shadowy occupants passes alongside them. The driver waves at the vehicle, but bratty Vera gives them the middle finger.

The family continue on their way until they reach the house. The house is very old and has a very strange decor. Every corridor is filled with various bric-a-brac including what seems to be an endless chain of creepy antique dolls.

The candy truck people, the "Witch and the Ogre", conduct a home invasion of the family's house. The "ogre" is an immense bald man who seems to be mentally disabled. He chases the girls throughout the house, brutalizing them as the gender-ambiguous "witch" fights with Pauline, ultimately murdering her.

Beth is petrified with fear and cannot raise a finger to help her family. Her mind retreats into a fantasy wherein she is several years older and she is a successful horror novelist with a husband and child. In the fantasy, Pauline survived her encounter with the witch.

In the real world, a frantic Vera snaps Beth out of her fantasy, and she realizes that is still a teenager, and still a prisoner of the witch and the ogre.

The witch takes Beth into one of the upstairs doll rooms and dresses her up to resemble a doll. She then leaves her for the ogre's lascivious attention. The ogre fondles the various dolls, including Beth, and sniffs at their crotch.

Beth finally musters up the courage to break away from the ogre and frees Beth from the witch's imprisonment elsewhere in the house. They succeed in escaping the house and run across a field towards a road where a police car with two officers rush to their aide. The witch follows them and shoots both officers dead.

A backup unit arrives while Beth retreats back into another fantasy, and shoots the witch and the ogre dead. They collect the panic-stricken girls and take them to the hospital.

Notes & Trivia

 * This film is alternatively known by its full title, Incident in a Ghostland, which redirects to this page.


 * Ghostland (2018) and Incident in a Ghostland (2018) both redirect to this page as well.


 * The tagline to this film is "True evil never dies".


 * There are a total of twenty credited cast members in this film.


 * The movie was filmed in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The setting of the film however is actually rural Illinois.


 * The psychotic home invaders are identified in the end title credits as "Candy truck woman" and "Fat man". In the film itself, Beth gives them the nickname "the witch and the ogre". The actual identities of the attackers are never revealed.


 * Actor Kevin Power played the role of the candy truck woman, but the character was voiced by Angela Asher, who was uncredited for her participation in this film.


 * According to the full cast list for this page at IMDB, Malick Laugier made an uncredited appearance in the film as an Amish boy. Malick is likely the son of director and writer Pascal Laugier.


 * Actress Taylor Hickson, who played young Vera in the film, suffered severe facial injuries during a scene where she pounds her fists through a glass door. The 19-year-old suffered major lacerations across her face that required stitches and left permanent scarring. Hickson brought a lawsuit against the film's production company, Incident Productions.


 * This is Pascal Laugier's fourth film as a director, not including film shorts. He is also known for directing Martyrs in 2008 and The Tall Man in 2012.
 * Actress Crystal Reed is best known in the horror genre for playing the role of Allison Argent on the MTV television series Teen Wolf and Abby Arcane on the DC Universe streaming series Swamp Thing in 2019.


 * Young Beth demonstrates a deep affection for H. P. Lovecraft in this film. Howard Phillips "H. P." Lovecraft was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction. His work was published in various magazines throughout the 1920s and 1930s, many of which have been adapted into film such as Re-Animator, From Beyond and Necronomicon: Book of the Dead. In this film, Lovecraft appears to Beth as part of a fantasy sequence. He is played by actor Paul Titley.


 * This is actor Paul Titley's first work in film.

Recommendations

 * Last House on the Left, The
 * Strangers, The
 * Strangers, The: Prey at Night