Ben Wheatley – The Ghoul #LFF2016

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Ben Wheatley, director of The Ghoul, presented at the 2016 BFI London Film Festival.

We met director Ben Wheatley to talk about his film The Ghoul, presented in the Thrill section of the 60th BFI London Film Festival.

In this interview, he reveals to us that at the origins of the film was an idea to make a movie, among other things, about depression. This fact alone introduces the fact that The Ghoul is certainly not afraid to visit some dark territories.

In fact, one of the most interesting features of the film is its structure, which takes the viewer down a tortuous path in which we are left wondering about what is real and what isn’t about what is revealed to us of the world of the film’s leading character, Chris, played by Tom Meeten. What are the challenges of constructing a film like that? We ask Wheatley this and more in our podcast interview.

THE GHOUL. Low budget Brit thriller, The Ghoul is an atmospheric slow-burn crime film more interested in psychology and the occult than in solving crimes. Tom Meeten’s detective Chris is called to investigate a mysterious, possible double murder. Discovering clues in the house of a shadowy suspect, he goes undercover as a patient to see the suspect’s psychotherapist. But our understanding of Chris is quickly turned on its head as we get inside his, with Meeten excelling in portraying his character’s complex duality. Gareth Tunley, who previously starred in Kill List and Down Terrace, turns director here and his intricate plots pay homage to the illustrious lineage of British genre-bending directors that includes Wheatley, Nic Roeg and Christopher Nolan. Gathering comedy royalty and friends (Alice Lowe, Niamh Cusack, Paul Kaye, Rufus Jones, Dan Renton Skinner and Geoffrey McGivern), Tunley proves himself adept at turning limited resources into a British indie debut of great style and invention.