The Ghost, the 2024 horror film from writer/director John Farrelly, is a unique piece of film history. It is the first horror movie in the Irish language. More specifically, Ulster Irish. That will ensure that this film will always be preserved. That is about the peak of The Ghost’s value, though.
Taking place just after the Great Famine in the mid-19th century, The Ghost follows Éamon and Máire (Tom Kerrisk and Livvy Hill), a father and daughter who find work as caretakers at a rundown country house.
The house is the Coolattin House in County Wicklow, which was owned by the Earl Fitzwilliam and his successors, and in this movie’s fictional world, that is who the pair work for. The house is not in the greatest of conditions out here in the real world, having been vacant for most of the past thirty years, and it shows. This makes the location ideal for a haunted house flick, but also something of an anachronism, as the house was not this aged and decrepit when the film takes place. Pay close attention, and one will be able to see some decidedly modern accoutrements here and there, including a vent fan.
It is only the two in the house, the Fitzwilliams and all their servants presumably spending the winter in London. Before arriving Máire is worried that a spirit she calls ‘Alexander’ has followed them to the house. Of course, if it had not, there would be no movie. In between 
cleaning windows, chopping wood, cooking food, and all the other day to day stuff, spectral shenanigans occur in the night. It’s all noises and doors opening. Typical haunted house tropes. Farrelly didn’t seem all that concerned with making his ghost frightening. The real horror in this movie is the atmosphere.
Farrelly used natural lighting during the day and candlelight at night. This has the effect of making the location a house of shadows. Combine that with the lack of music and the sound of the wind, and the general feeling is one of dread and oppression. When one can see things, the photography from Farrelly and Ross Power is quite good. The colors have good contrast, which is a departure from the washed look popular today, where high dynamic ranges have removed shadows from the moviegoing experience.
As the movie goes on, the ghostly stuff doesn’t progress. Rather, Éamon degrades. First, he suffers a nasty foot injury while chopping wood, heaping all the work on Máire while he recovers. Then, he starts to drain the liquor cabinet. His mood gets worse, he becomes abusive, violent, then by the end he’s a genuine Jack Torrance.
There is a good movie to be had in The Ghost. The acting is difficult to gauge because I don’t speak Irish, but neither did the actors, apparently. They spoke their lines the best they could, but with some wicked accents, according to some reviews. I can write that Kerrisk was intense. His physicality and deep growl was a menace from the second he appears onscreen, and there was no doubt that his character was going to become a threat at some point in the movie. A scene where he brandishes an axe while yelling at Máire was a standout.
As stated above, the cinematography was superb. The problem with this movie is that it is dreadfully slow. It crawls along for nearly an hour and a half, and way too much of that time is spent watching Máire do chores and Éamon drink. All the work in the movie is done by the atmosphere, and none by the story.
There are plenty of great films that have a slow pace, but there’s always something going on within that deliberateness. Farrelly was trying for something profound but ended up making something dull. I was hoping for anything to happen to give this film some forward momentum, but kept getting disappointed. By the time another character shows up in the final act, with less than fifteen minutes left to go in the movie, it was too late. I was checked out. All I wanted by then was for the movie to end, and I didn’t care how Farrelly did it, nor was I impressed by the path he chose. I think Farrelly fell into a problem common with storytelling. He had a great setting, a good start, and an ending in mind, but had no idea how to fill the middle. That middle became the vast majority of this film, and it is deadly to everything else.