Ghost Story

Ghost Story is a 1981 American supernatural horror film directed by John Irvin and starring Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., John Houseman, Craig Wasson, and Alice Krige. Based on the 1979 novel of the same name by Peter Straub, it follows a group of elderly businessmen in New England who gather to recount their involvement in a woman's death decades prior when one of them suspects her ghost has been haunting him. Ghost Story was the final film for Astaire and Fairbanks, the final completed film for Douglas (he died four months before the film's release), and the first film to feature Michael O'Neill. The film was shot in Woodstock, Vermont; Saratoga Springs, New York; and at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida. Ghost Story was released in the United States on December 18, 1981. Plot During the frigid winter of 1979, in the small New England town of Milburn, four elderly friends—businessman Ricky Hawthorne, lawyer Sears James, physician John Jaffrey, and Mayor Edward Charles Wanderley—form the Chowder Society, an informal men's club who get together each week to share tales of horror. Edward's son David, living in New York City, falls from his apartment window after seeing a girl he's been sleeping with suddenly turn into a living corpse. His other son, Don, comes home at Edward's request. Sometime after David's funeral, Edward sees him walking through town during a snowstorm and follows him to a bridge, where he disappears. Calling out to his dead son, Edward suddenly sees a female apparition and he falls to his death. Two escaped patients from a mental asylum, Gregory and Fenny Bate, have taken up residence in the old Eva Galli house, now in ruins. Doubting his father committed suicide, Don approaches the remaining three friends and tells them a "ghost" story to gain membership into the Chowder Society. In a flashback, Don tells the story of how he, a college professor in Florida, began an affair with a mysterious secretary named Alma, soon becoming engaged. Alma insisted she wanted to marry Don in his home town of Milburn but he was reluctant. Don soon began to suspect that something was wrong with Alma, especially when he touched her one night and realized she was as cold as a corpse. Don eventually broke things off with a furious Alma, who disappeared from his life. He fell into a depression, costing him his reputation and his job. A month later, Don called David and learned to his horror that he had become engaged to Alma.