Ghosts That Still Walk (James T. Flocker; 1977)

In the days when movies still aired late at night instead of infomercials, this unassuming film made an impression upon UHF-surfing night owls, if for at least one image.  After six decades of fantasy cinema featuring humans besieged by numerous ghouls and goblins, Ghosts That Still Walk offers the intriguing premise of an elderly RV-ing couple being pursued by boulders! This sequence is surely reason enough to warrant a watch. However, as in the case of most films released by Gold Key Entertainment, this movie is better to have seen than to sit through. In the late 1970s through to the early 1980s, this fledgling company must have had a singular mandate to sell the most lethargic micro-budgeted science fiction or horror films to TV stations as late-night filler. Films like The Lucifer Complex, Captive, or Target Earth?, produced in the waning days of the public's fascination with paranormal, provided sleep aid to unsuspecting insomniacs. (Many of these titles had a second life on home video.) However, despite that many of these movies are a chore to sit through, they do leave a strange impression afterwards: much the same as after having had a long grueling road trip through unknown territory. It is the price paid for discovering something unusual. Because Alice Douglas' 15 year-old grandson Mark (Matt Boston) has had a recent history of head aches, she seeks the help of Dr. Sills (Rita Crafts), who suggests that they both go under hypnosis to re-visit some past trauma in each of their lives. It is revealed his ailment, and their recent encounters with strange phenomena, are related to the native mummy that Mark's mother Ruth (Caroline Howe) had found in the desert while researching for a book on Southwest natives. Before the film's present, she had gone insane- another supernatural incident revolving around the discovery of the corpse. When Alice is under hypnosis, the viewer sees via flashback the incident in which she and her husband Henry are pursued by boulders while driving their RV through the desert. Mark's hypnosis reveals that the young man had an out-of-body experience, therefore causing the spirit of the native corpse to infiltrate his body. Although there are overlapping characters in both of these lengthy sequences, this film still feels like two episodes from a failed horror anthology series that are stitched together. The wraparound narrative explains away further plot details not illustrated in either of these, and becomes a third story thread which flashes back to the exploits of Mark's mother, as told through her manuscript, which Dr. Sills reads in voiceover. On paper, at least, it appears that writer-director James Flocker has a great deal to say for himself. The text is abundant in nuances of metaphysics and new age religion ("the physical body turns to dust, the spiritual body is in heaven, and the third body is on an astral plane") that would seem inviting to a tuned-in 1970s audience. However, in its denouement, this narrative suggests that this dilemma of possession can be thwarted by Christian beliefs (perhaps a sneaky way of inferring that since Columbus, native customs have been eradicated by the white man's contrasting values). This film is however corrupted by limited visual  ideas, and poor editing. The well-remembered boulder sequence is more interesting for its concept than its execution. The suspense of this nearly twenty-minute scene simply cannot be upheld by repetitive shots of Henry in the cab, Alice trying to maintain her balance in the kitchen, the grandfather's reactions, and keys moving by themselves in the ignition. Mark's flashback sequence is equally tedious, with repeated shots of the rocky ravine, the mother in the desert ("I could hear you calling me; you drew me into the darkness”), multiple takes of the Geiger counter hitting the ground, jumpcuts of Ruth turning in bed and flashcuts to the mummy. Its rhythm coupled with the soundtrack of overlapping voices almost makes this passage an interesting attempt at experimental cinema, except that the images we are made to see in repetition are rather pedestrian. The one interesting shot from this sequence after Mark is taken over by the spirit. He is lit with a hard key in the foreground, while we see his silhouetted house in the background. This layered image is simple to do, yet nicely conveys the character's out-of-body transformation, and perhaps comes the closest to the kind of moody cinematic poetry that Flocker strains to achieve. For the well-remembered boulder sequence, and other reasons, Ghosts That Still Walk is one of the better Gold Key offerings... considering. James Flocker has no grasp of pacing or screen composition, but this film still leaves an impression for its fascinating ideas, and unique atmosphere conveyed by a layered soundtrack of chanting, indecipherable voices, and natural sounds. (His follow-up film, The Alien Encounters, is an equally interesting misfire where the writing surpasses the visual experience, and likewise features a denouement in the white desert sands.) There is a Leave It To Beaver wholesomeness beneath the supernatural veneer, seen in Mark's "golly gee whiz" demeanour. Whatever this lacks in production values, pacing or scripting, it still has a ragged regional authenticity in its travelogue approach when the elder Douglases visit an Old West tourist town, and in the casting of unknowns (although Ann Nelson would go on to do a memorable bit in Airplane! as the old lady who commits suicide). As of this writing, Ghosts That Still Walk has not been released to DVD or Blu-Ray, and will likely only ever be seen in copies made from its VHS releases.  This was one of the many peculiar titles released by Toronto's own Interglobal Video. When it was still more cost efficient to rent movies instead of purchasing them (as new VHS releases costs upwards of $100 per title), Interglobal was one of the first companies to start selling movies in department stores for the (then) bargain price of twenty bucks. Many of these budget labels sold haphazard copies of public domain releases we've seen a thousand times. But Interglobal was unique among other budget video labels, in that their catalog also featured some genuine curios, which still have not been released to digital format. Ghosts That Still Walk is no classic awaiting rediscovery. It is frustratingly tedious, even more in that its intriguing ideas are not fully realized. But to its credit, it lingers in the memory for days afterwards: a reward similar to the sights experienced in a long road trip. If you're a fan of regional or paranormal-themed films from the 70s, you'll want to see it anyway.