BROOKLYN 45
★★★★
OUT NOW (SHUDDER) / CERT TBC / 92 MINS
DIRECTOR Ted Geoghegan
CAST Anne Ramsay, Ron E. Rains, Jeremy Holm, Larry Fessenden
Brooklyn 45 is a finely tuned, well-played chamber (of horrors) piece. In December 1945, four friends meet in New York, the trauma of World War II heavy in the air. Lt Col Clive ‘Hock’ Hockstatter (Larry Fessenden) gathers the group together to conduct a séance to contact his deceased wife, who died by suicide. Director Ted Geoghegan perfectly orchestrates the initial unease, but rather than full-blown horror the film pivots into a compelling drama exploring increasingly knotty questions: chiefly, can you commit a solitary heinous act in the cauldron of conflict and still consider yourself a good person? Occasionally Geoghegan’s reach extends his grasp, but this is a beautifully modulated drama where the biggest bumps in the night are caused by the characters’ crisis of conscience.