When The Lights Went Out

 When the Lights Went Out is a surprisingly enjoyable take on a real-life 1974 poltergeist haunting up in Yorkshire. So yes, "based on real events", quotation marks and all. That's not usually a good sign.

 The unlucky family moving into a haunted bit of council housing this time is the Maynards - Len (Steven Waddington), Jen (Kate Ashfield) and their thirteen-year-old daughter Sally (Tasha Connor). As usual, the spook latches onto the kid, staging some scares with her toys. It's pretty ridiculous, but I can't not appreciate a homage to The Changeling that replaces the downstairs ball with a Slinky. I mean, come on, that's brilliant.
 On the red side of the ledger, it's got another instance of a haunted etch-a-sketch. Cut that out, folks. Wasn't scary in Toy Story, still isn't.

This scene was filmed at Fountains Abbey, which I highly recommend visiting if you get a chance.

 At first it looks like the ghosts are going to hassle the poor girl while the parents think she's acting out, but... no; these poltergeist are not at all shy, and soon the whole family is terrified by telekinetic storms, cold spots, and living patches of darkness. When they call the newspaper, the reporter initially scoffs at their story before the ghosts sock him right in the face. Ridiculous, but fun.

 It's a thoroughly working-class ghost story, so the family can't just up and move off to a different house. But as they try to cohabit with their supernatural housemate, they discover that the spook is a bit more Canterville than Amityville; Though it's sometimes violent, the nature of its attacks are more often puckish than dangerous (something that's actually explained later). Sally strikes a friendship of sorts with the spirit, which she discovers used to be a girl about her age; Jen tries to make the best of it and ignore it. And Len... well, he tries organizing ghost tours of his home, and enjoys his new reputation as a local celebrity.

 The film spends a bit of time on how all the weirdness affects the Maynards. There's also a bit of drama involving Sally and her family (slapping children was all the rage back then) and her social life - but it's pretty underdeveloped. The thrust of the plot is that, as things evolve and explanations arrive, it's clear that the ghost's intentions are not all friendly.
 It all leads into the film's greatest weakness, a series of climactic confrontations that skew too far towards cheese and clichés to be forgiven. They don't quite undo all the great work that preceded them, but it's a shame that such a weird, likeable tonal mishmash of a movie veers so hard into tired, lazy genre tropes and poor CGI - particularly for the final confrontation; The preceding exorcism is cheesy as hell, but at least it's got a sense of fun and includes someone saying "flippin' hell!".

 Writer/director Pat Holden has a great feel for his characters and setting, which are the movie's greatest strengths - the genre stuff is fun, and has some solid scares, but it's definitely not as good. The actors are more than up to the task, and the wall-to-wall northern accents are a joy to listen to. The cinematography (DP: Jonathan Harvey) is moody as hell and the production design (by Jane Levick) does a great job at evoking a sense of time and place; that can't have been easy on this budget.
 I also liked the music (by Marc Canham) - piano driven, sometimes accompanied by strings, growing atonal when the ghosts are up to something.

 Some of the film works, some of it doesn't, but overall it's a lot of fun. It's a shame it botches the landing so bad, but what are you going to do; It's still a pretty unique take on haunted house tropes.