High Spirits

Written and directed by the man who gave you Angel, Company of Wolves and Mona Lisa, this dreadful movie carries on the love affair between Ireland and Hollywood with a vengeance, beginning as a tribute to '50s flea-bag theatre, continuing as a banal commercial for the joys of Celtic rural life, and ending as a cross between Beetlejuice, Cymbeline and The Quiet Man. O'Toole is the decrepit owner of decrepit Plunkett Castle, which he hopes to preserve from the hands of a rich American developer by renting it out to gullible, ghost-hunting rich Americans. Lo and behold, real ghosts emerge, time zones are crossed, silly buggers played, Hannah rattles her bones, and Guttenberg plays Guttenberg. The script seems a collection of loose ends and rewrites; the direction is deeply dispirited; and with the exception of O'Toole and a couple of engaging vignettes, it's a complete turkey.