High Spirits is one of my earliest movie memories. I was born in 1986 and, somewhere around 1990, an old VHS copy had worked its way into my tiny catalogue of things worth remembering. There are very few clear memories from that age, yet this daft Irish ghost comedy is one of them. I’ve watched it so many times since that chunks of dialogue still arrive in my head a fraction before the actors say them.
That gives High Spirits an obvious nostalgic advantage, but nostalgia alone cannot explain why I can still happily put it on. Peter Plunkett, played with enormous commitment by Peter O’Toole, is trying to save his failing ancestral castle by selling American tourists a manufactured version of haunted Ireland. His staff stage the supernatural business themselves, only for Castle Plunkett to reveal that it has perfectly serviceable ghosts already. It is a wonderfully dishonest business plan.
The headline cast is ridiculous for a film with this reputation: O’Toole, Daryl Hannah, Beverly D’Angelo, Jennifer Tilly, Peter Gallagher, Liam Neeson and, because apparently no corner of 1980s Hollywood could remain Guttenberg-free, Steve Guttenberg. He feels slightly crowbarred into proceedings, but is perfectly good fun once inside the gates.
More importantly, the film is not held together by famous names alone. The less-celebrated performers around Castle Plunkett give the place its character. Donal McCann, Ray McAnally, Liz Smith, Connie Booth and the wider Irish/British ensemble make the castle feel genuinely populated, not decorated with extras waiting for O’Toole. Their fake-haunting routines are a huge part of the comedy, and the collision with the visiting Americans works because both sides play against each other so well. The stars dominate the poster, but plenty of the film’s personality comes from further down the billing.
Dromore Castle in County Limerick gives the film a physical identity that modern effects could easily sand smooth. The practical and visual effects have that unmistakable late-1980s character too: ambitious, sometimes visibly of their period, but full of craft. Some of it has dated. That is not the same as saying it has stopped working. There is a handmade quality to the supernatural chaos that remains enormously appealing.
The plot is hardly difficult to predict now, but surprise is not why I return to High Spirits. It is the people, dialogue, stormy corridors, gothic furniture and slightly chaotic enthusiasm of the whole thing. Neil Jordan lost control of the final edit and disliked the broader comedy the released version became. I would dearly love to see the film he intended, because the difference could be fascinating.
That is the strange contradiction behind High Spirits. Jordan had legitimate reasons to be unhappy with what reached cinemas, yet that compromised version became one of my earliest film memories and has survived repeated viewings remarkably well.
Until somebody manages to summon that elusive version, I remain extremely fond of the one we got. High Spirits may be compromised, dated and critically underloved, but after decades of rewatches Castle Plunkett is still somewhere I’m very happy to revisit. Watch this at least once, you will enjoy it!
