Ghostkeeper

Plot

Jenny, Marty, and Chrissy are spending their New Year's Eve on a snowmobiling trip in the Rocky Mountains. After talking with a storekeeper at a ski shop, the three decide to go riding before dark, but end up caught in a blizzard. Looming before them is a seemingly abandoned hotel at the top of the snow trail, isolated from tourists and miles away from the skiing area. The three enter the building to escape the increasingly harsh conditions, and find that the heat is on, but there are no lights. As night falls, they start a fire and tell stories and reminisce. Marty decides to go into the hotel kitchen where he finds an old woman lurking. She is brash and apprehensive of their presence, and they learn that she lives in the hotel with two unseen sons.

Though hesitant, the woman lodges them in rooms. Marty and Jenny argue in their bedroom, while Chrissy goes down the hallway to take a bath since the plumbing in the rooms is obsolete. While in the bathtub, Chrissy is attacked by one of the sons named Danny and held underwater. A restless Jenny goes to check on Chrissy, but the candle-lit bathroom is empty; Jenny then runs into the old woman and have a conversation about the hotel and hers sons. Meanwhile, Danny carries Chrissy to the basement of the hotel, where he slits her throat and then stores her body in a freezer. Jenny awakens in the night and hears the old woman talking to someone downstairs.

The next morning, Marty goes outside to the snowmobiles to activate them upon no success. Suspecting that they have been tampered with, he goes outside to an old shed for tools, while Jenny stays in the kitchen with the old woman. After accepting the tea from the offering woman, Jenny inquires about Chrissy's disappearance, but the old woman is evasive. Jenny returns to a lounge in the hotel where she realizes she's been drugged, and falls unconscious. She awakens in the basement, where she finds a book on Native American folklore and reads that a Wendigo is often "kept" by an old woman who had the power passed on to her from another. She opens the freezer and discovers a human Windigo inside, being the old woman's second son. Danny then comes down to the basement with a chainsaw and chases Jenny throughout the hotel, up into the attic. Jenny exits through a window onto a small balcony; she manages to push him over, where he is impaled on an iron fence below.

Jenny finds Marty outside, who appears to be possessed and rambling to himself while wandering into the woods. Meanwhile, the storekeeper arrives at the hotel where he is stabbed by the old woman. Jenny re-enters the hotel, where she finds Danny's body has been dragged into the foyer. She locates a shotgun in a storage room, and is confronted by the old woman who remarks claims that she is Jenny's deceased mother. Jenny shoots and kills her. Strangely overtaken, she visits the Wendigo in the freezer where she says that "she will look after you now." and finds Marty's body outside with no reaction. In the end, Jenny sits in a lounge chair in front of a fireplace as the old woman's head is heard.

Cast

Production

Ghostkeeper was filmed on location in Lake Louise and the Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. Filming began on December 1, 1980, and finished on December 23, 1980. The film's budget was a modest CA$750,000 dollars, thus justifying the film as a highly low budget production. The cast was made up of unknown or locally known actors, and for most of them, Ghostkeeper was their first and final film credit (Georgie Collins was primarily a well-known stage actress in Calgary, and Murray Ord went on to become a successful film producer in later years). The film was photographed by cinematographer John Holbrook.

The film was made under a tax shelter, which made its financial situation rather unstable; Jim Makichuk said that he was given the option of halting the film's production when the funding began to run low, but he pursued to finish the film anyway—

According to Makichuk, prior to the depletion of the budget, his original intention was to film a much longer ending, including an extended chase sequence with Spier and the Wendigo creature on the rooftop of the Deer Lodge hotel.

The film's score was composed by Paul Zaza, who also composed music for both Canadian slasher film productions Prom Night (1980) and My Bloody Valentine (1981). Zaza got on board due to the involvement of film editor Stan Cole. In fact, some of the musical themes featured in Ghostkeeper were also used in Prom Night.

Alternate opening

An alternate opening to the film was shot by distributors two years after the initial production. In the opening, a young man fleeing from the hotel at sunlight and running into the woods until backing up against a tree. While pinned, he is killed (presumably by Danny) and stabbed from a sharp wood stake. This opening was not featured in the 1986 VHS.

Release

In May 1981, it was reported that the film was to be screened out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

The film was released in Canada and the United States in December 1981, being distributed by New World Pictures, but did not receive a home video release until September 1986. The film was released on VHS in September 1986 through New World Pictures' home video branch. Director Jim Makichuk stated in an interview that he was trying to get a DVD released through Netflix with a quality print of the film.

In April 2012, Ghostkeeper was released for the first time on DVD through Code Red Releasing. The DVD included a commentary with Jim Makichuck, Riva Spier and Murray Ord, an interview with director of photography John Holbook as well as an interview with actress Georgie Collins. The film is presented in 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen for the first time on video and has been restored from the only known existing film elements.

Reception

Critical reception for the film has been mixed to positive, with praise regarding the presented atmosphere. Terror Trap.com gave the film a positive review stating, "Not for all tastes, the methodically paced Ghostkeeper is an exercise in disciplined mood generation; its bare claustrophobia either works for the viewer or not. But for those who prefer their chills straightforward, pre-sneer and pre-sarcasm, Keeper can be a most rewarding snow trap".

J.A. Kerswell from Hysteria Lives! gave the film a negative review calling the film "flawed", and "muddled". In the The Blockbuster Entertainment Guide to Movies and Videos (1999), the film was rated two-and-a-half stars out of five, deemed "an absurd thriller." Eric Cotenas of DVD Drive-In noted the film's prominent atmosphere and drew comparisons to Stephen King's The Shining as well as cinematographer John Holbrook’s "aesthetic response to the desolate location."