High Spirits

Buy This Item High Spirits by MGM (Video & DVD)  Available from Amazon  $12.99  on 11-27-2008     Daryl Hannah, Peter O'Toole and Steve Guttenberg star in this gleefully ghoulish comedy sparkling with romance and rollicking with supernatural special effects. Written and directed by Neil Jordan (Interview With the Vampire) and co-starring Beverly D'Angelo, Jennifer Tilly, Peter Gallagher and Liam Neeson, High Spirits is the most fun you'll have in this world or the next!Impoverished Peter Plunkett (O'Toole) hatches the perfect plan to save his debt-ridden Irish castle: lure American tourists by advertising the place as haunted. But when Peter and his staff don sheets and chains to go a-haunting, they scare up more than paying guests'they arouse the real ghosts of Castle Plunkett! And when American tourist Jack (Guttenberg) spies a gorgeous ghost named Mary (Hannah), it's love at first sighting. Now all Jack has to worry about is Mary's murderous spook of a husband and their 200-year age difference! Reader Reviews This movie was panned by every critic at the time of it's release, and rightly so; it is not a 'serious piece of cinema'. I was attracted to this movie only because it featured Peter O'Toole and I wasn't disappointed on that count. O'Toole plays a wonderful 'drunk-yet-erudite' descendant of an ancient Irish family that runs a rather delapidated hotel that is the family castle. The movie revolves around O'Toole's character's attempt to hold on to the family castle by advertising it as a haunted hotel and enlists the staff/villagers in a ridiculous attempt to play "...ghosties,ghoulies and beasties". The story evolves as the first group of guests arrive. Steve Guttenberg plays the husband of a shrew of a wife,Beverly D'Angelo. Daryl Hannah plays the murdered ancestor of O'Toole and Liam Neeson plays the murderous husband - both are ghosts that have been destined to relive the murder night after night. The supporting cast are the real stars along with O'Toole. Liam Neeson makes a decent ghost though his character isn't in the film near enough. All in all this is a very light-hearted movie that is worth watching for O'Toole, if you can stand Steven Guttenberg and Daryl Hannah who are given way too much screen time. There is a bit of profanity in the beginning during a phone conversation between O'Toole's character and the mogul that is calling in the mortgage on the castle. There are mild references to sex and there is a good bit of drinking.

High Spirits Available from Amazon Price: $12.99 Updated on 11-27-2008.

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