When MP's wife Grace Goodwin is found naked on a London street, Harry Price is summoned to investigate claims that her house is haunted.
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Reviews
Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.
Sorry, this movie sucks
A story that's too fascinating to pass by...
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
I can upon this tv show by accident, never heard of it or Harry Price. I read the reviews, some negative and a few positives. I'm glad to say I'm glad I watched it. The story is not based on Harry Price life, it's not a biography. Writers used his character and wrote a story for entertaining purposes. Would have liked to see this made into a TV series.
Rafe Spall plays 'ghost hunter' Harry Price. In the wake of World War I many people had lost loved ones and could not reconcile the senseless waste that had occurred and wanted to be able to speak to them beyond the grave. This included the very high and very low in society. In order to fill the void a mini industry took off of mediums and psychics who used all manner of tricks and scams to exploit their grief. Harry Price is in this field and is contacted by a high profile MP whose wife has had a bit of a 'turn' and come over all unnecessary; she in turn claims that their new home, an erstwhile 'workhouse', is haunted. He is called in to investigate and prevent the poor woman from being hauled off to the sanatorium – posh word for mad house.Now this is a TV film but has very high production values for the most part. There was some wobble camera at the beginning but that seemed to calm down – much to my relief. The acting is all top notch and a real chemistry builds between Price and the maid Sarah played by the wonderful Cara Theobold. There are some really spooky bits but this is essentially a detective story with psychic overtones and I must say I greatly enjoyed it. I hope they make some more - recommended.
Superb, thought-provoking period piece with contemporary and feminist undertones; and there's the rub, in that, usually, I have little time for entertainment projecting contemporary liberal ideology onto period pieces, which, by dint of chronology makes a mockery of us all. However, due to the consistent quality and interesting plot I was able to set my misgivings aside and thoroughly enjoy the film. Following World War 1, known as the the Great War, most British families had lost close family members, many, more than one. As a result there was extensive interest in the afterlife, the spirit world, in that, many people wanted to reach out to their loved ones because for many, they never have had the opportunity to say goodbye, subsequently, the fad produced so-called supernaturalists, deceitful men and women keen to cash in on grieving relatives. Into this environment comes Harry Price, 'ghost hunter', a modern scientist aghast at witnessing these parasites prey on grieving families and seeks to expose both them and their methods. However, Harry, played brilliantly by Rafe Spall, succumbs to 'evoking' the spirits on behalf of a grieving soldier but the well-meaning deceit goes dreadfully wrong and his 'victim' commits suicide leaving Harry bereft. Months later, we find Harry morose and drifting, somewhat hangdog and unemployed. Into this environment arrives a senior opposition politician with an urgent need for Harry's particular skill set; it seems a promising politician's wife is being troubled by the dead and only the Ghost Hunter can help. On Harry's journey to unmask the perpetrators or confront the dead he is ably assisted by Downtons Abbey's Cara Theobold as Sara Green who puts in a marvellous performance as the hard put-upon maid of the haunted household. The supporting cast, Zoe Boyle, Tom Ward and Richie Campbell are competent as well as confident, typical of a quality British production. In closing, I believe there is, within this film the promise of a great TV show if the ITV network which produced the show demonstrates a little vision and courage. All in all a spooky 8/10.
As another reviewer has noted, HARRY PRICE: GHOST HUNTER has absolutely NOTHING to do with the real-life paranormal investigator. It gets the era right but that's about it. What we have here is the usual lefty period drama nonsense, with a miscast and poorly acting Rafe Spall full of the usual mannerisms and the like but failing to convince for a second as the real Price.I would have enjoyed this immensely had it followed some of Price's real-life cases, like the mongoose or Borley Rectory. Instead, we get involved in some nonsense involving a guy's wife who keeps having ghostly visions. They also shoehorn a black guy into the story in a ridiculous show of tokenism. The plotting is slow and dull and the characters are quite laughable, but the biggest regret is that Price is so unrecognisable. Spall looks nothing like him and acts nothing like him, so why they bothered pretending that he was Price I don't know. Without the Harry Price hook I probably would have rated this higher, but as it stands it's a kick in the teeth for any fan of the supernatural.