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High SpiritsIf conflict is the cornerstone of high drama, then contrast, its calmer cousin, is what animates most light entertainment. It's there in fish-out-of-water comedies such as Crocodile Dundee, fluffy romances like Notting Hill, even one-man-and his-dog flicks - Turner & Hooch anyone?
But just as 90 minutes of people pummelling the living dung out of someone does not a successful drama make, so too can an over-reliance on contrasts result in films that feel like the product of a rugby scrum. Nothing flows or follows smoothly. All is clatter and noise, higgle and piggle.
Spouting Shakespeare and glugging scotch like it's going out of fashion, Peter O'Toole presides over Castle Plunkett, a decrepit Irish castle introduced in a fabulously nimble opening shot that speeds impossibly across a rain-lashed lake. In order to appease the encircling creditors, he and his staff of buck-faced bumpkins pretend the castle is haunted. But when a coach-load of American spook-seekers come to stay, real ghosties take matters into their own hands.
Peruse the cast list for just a second and the querulous contrasts that soon derail the film are swiftly signalled. The Brits are represented by Lawrence Of Arabia himself, here looking like a sprightly cadaver with a fake tan, and crinkly faced crone Liz Smith from 'The Royle Family'.
The Americans, meanwhile, include breathy sex doll Jennifer Tilly (Bound), a neurotic Beverly D'Angelo (National Lampoon's Vacation) and no-talent manchild Steve Guttenberg. All this plus Liam Neeson as a ghostly ginger sexpest and Daryl Hannah (with an Irish accent so bad it might have inspired Julia Roberts in Mary Reilly) as his wayward missus. It's eclectic to say the least.
After the first ebb of crass parochial putdowns (Guttenberg sums up Ireland as the home of the Loch Ness Monster and men in skirts), the presence of Connie Booth underlines just how much better 'Fawlty Towers' handled the old transatlantic culture-clash-in-a-hotel routine. Equally, with hand-drawn spooks and obvious wires, the real ghosts are no more convincing than the fake ones, so the supernatural business falls far short of The Frighteners.
Just when the film looks to have reached its nadir, in a bizarre boozy scene between Guttenberg, acting like he's never been drunk before, and O'Toole, acting like he actually is, proceedings get bawdier - and stranger. Adult themes collide head on with Jordan's cartoony concerns as Neeson starts touching up D'Angelo in the shower and Guttenberg befriends a talking horse called Renaldo.
By this stage, such is the film's lumbering awkwardness that the characters appear to be commentating on the content. "This is the most pitiful supernatural scam I've ever encountered," pipes up one. "What you have to ask yourself is: why do we do it?" intones O'Toole. They're valid points and ones that this film, which espouses eternal love but contents itself with lust, and invests in magic without offering any of its own, makes no attempt to answer.
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