"Brooklyn 45" works beautifully as a wartime ghost story

Brooklyn 45 (2023)

A group of war-vet friends reunites, only to conjure up ghosts in the paranormal and figurative sense, in Ted Geoghegan’s beautifully staged and expertly acted wartime horror drama “Brooklyn 45.” It’s a character-driven ghost story with the feel of a chamber play, and Geoghegan (2015’s “We Are Still Here”) directs his perfectly chosen actors from a tightly written script that lets them go off.

It’s December 27, 1945—only a couple months after the end of World War II—when said group of military veterans get together in the Brooklyn brownstone of their best friend, Lt. Col. Clive Hockstatter (genre mainstay Larry Fessenden). “Hock,” as his pals call him, is grieving the loss of his wife Susie, who killed herself on Thanksgiving morning. There’s former interrogator Marla “the Merciless” Sheridan (Anne Ramsay), who’s married to the straitlaced Bob (Ron E. Rains) and now works as a pencil-pusher at The Pentagon. Rigid military commander Paul DiFranco (Ezra Buzzington) has already been at the party at Clive’s for hours, and resident homosexual Major Archie Stanton (Jeremy Holm), a war criminal, arrives around the same time as Marla and Bob. Once they all catch up and unwind a little with some scotch, Hock asks them to humor him and partake in a séance, so he can move on. They do make contact with the other side, but one of them breaks the circle. As the real enemy reveals itself to be paranoia among friends, it becomes a night they all have to live with. Read the full review at Guy At The Movies.com.

Grade: B +

Shudder released “Brooklyn 45” (92 min.) on Shudder and AMC+ on June 9, 2023.