When Dolls, Demons, and Delusion Collide
If your idea of a relaxing evening is watching a French-Canadian fever dream about trauma, abuse, and literary ambition—all wrapped up in a candy-colored nightmare—then Ghostland (or Incident in a Ghostland) is your twisted cup of tea. Directed by Pascal Laugier, the man who brought the world Martyrs (aka “the reason therapists can’t retire”), this 2018 psychological horror film is part home-invasion thriller, part hallucinatory nightmare, and part therapy session that went entirely off the rails.
It’s grim. It’s brutal. It’s brilliant. And, somehow, it’s funny—if your sense of humor lives in the same dark alley as Lovecraft and existential dread.
Welcome to the House That Trauma Built
The film starts off innocent enough: Pauline (Mylène Farmer) and her two daughters, Beth (Emilia Jones/Crystal Reed) and Vera (Taylor Hickson/Anastasia Phillips), move into their late aunt’s creepy old house in the middle of nowhere. You know the drill—too many dolls, too few neighbors, and more “foreboding atmosphere” than a Victorian attic full of taxidermy.
Of course, this being a Pascal Laugier film, the quaint family setup lasts about five minutes before the Candy Truck of Doom pulls up. Inside? A deranged woman in a dress (Angela Asher) and a hulking brute known as the Fat Man (Rob Archer), whose hobbies include doll mutilation and other activities that would get you permanently banned from Build-A-Bear.
The break-in that follows is as vicious as it is surreal. It’s not just horror—it’s horror with an operatic flair for cruelty. Laugier doesn’t want you to scream; he wants you to wince, laugh nervously, and then question your own sanity for watching it.
Dolls Just Wanna Have Fun (and Murder)
When Beth begs the Candy Truck Woman to explain why they’re being attacked, she replies with the line of the century:
“We just wanna play with dolls.”
It’s the kind of quote that makes you laugh, then feel guilty about laughing, then laugh again because you realize the movie’s laughing with you, not at you.
Pauline, the mother, goes full maternal Terminator, brutally killing the intruders—or so we think. The camera cuts, the screams fade, and suddenly we’re in Chicago sixteen years later. Beth, now grown, is a successful horror novelist who apparently used her trauma to pay for a nice apartment and an even nicer sense of denial.
It’s every writer’s dream: turn your pain into art and maybe a down payment.
The Twist: Schrödinger’s Trauma
When Beth gets a frantic call from her sister Vera begging for help, she returns to the old family house, where Mom still lives and Vera has apparently gone full “ghost whisperer in a padded room.”
Things start to unravel in ways that would make Freud break out in applause. Beth’s sense of reality begins to crumble—mirrors distort, doors move, and every shadow feels like an accusation. What follows is a stunning sequence of psychological whiplash as Beth slowly realizes the horrifying truth: her adulthood, her books, her entire “I made it out alive” fantasy was all in her head.
She and Vera never escaped. They’re still in the house. They’re still toys in the Candy Truck Woman’s doll collection.
It’s one of the most disturbing reveals in modern horror, a gut-punch that leaves you equal parts horrified and awestruck. It’s like Inception, if Inception featured less DiCaprio and more blunt-force trauma.
Pascal Laugier: The Michelangelo of Misery
Laugier doesn’t make horror films so much as emotional endurance tests disguised as movies. Ghostland continues his fascination with suffering as transformation—pain as both prison and escape hatch. Every moment is soaked in dread, every shadow brims with menace, and every frame screams, “Therapy can wait until the credits roll.”
Yet there’s a twisted beauty to it all. The camera loves decay. The house feels alive—a grotesque dollhouse pulsing with fear and faded femininity. You could practically taste the mildew and regret through the screen.
And then, just when you think it’s too bleak to bear, Laugier sprinkles in moments of absurd humor. There’s something darkly hilarious about Beth’s delusions being so productive. Most people dissociate; she wrote a best-selling novel. Talk about turning trauma into hustle culture.
Performances to Die For (Literally)
Crystal Reed (as adult Beth) gives a performance that’s all nerves and glass—fragile but sharp. You can see her cracking with every realization, her eyes darting like a deer caught in headlights it refuses to admit are real. Reed manages to convey both terror and tenderness, grounding the movie even as the story descends into madness.
Anastasia Phillips as Vera delivers one of horror’s most physically intense performances. She’s chained, battered, and emotionally unhinged, yet still manages to radiate defiance. Her raw energy balances Reed’s controlled despair like a duet between panic attacks.
And Mylène Farmer—yes, that French pop icon—plays the mother with eerie restraint. She’s nurturing one moment, blood-soaked the next, like June Cleaver with PTSD.
The villains? Equal parts terrifying and ridiculous, like a nightmare clown show designed by David Lynch. The Candy Truck Woman and her ogre sidekick embody the grotesque purity of fairy-tale monsters: no motivation, no humanity, just chaos in lipstick.
The Horror of Survival
What makes Ghostland special isn’t just its brutality—it’s its empathy. This is horror with a beating, broken heart. Laugier doesn’t linger on violence for shock value; he uses it to explore the long-term effects of trauma. The real horror isn’t the attack—it’s living with what happens afterward.
The film asks, “What if survival isn’t the end of the story?” For Beth and Vera, surviving the night means living in a loop, where the past refuses to die and the future keeps dissolving like smoke.
And in one of the film’s strangest yet most beautiful sequences, Beth imagines meeting H.P. Lovecraft at a cocktail party. He praises her writing, calling it a masterpiece. It’s a darkly funny fantasy—a trauma survivor finding validation from the patron saint of cosmic dread.
A Symphony of Suffering (and Catharsis)
By the time the sisters finally fight back—Beth literally beating her demons into submission—the audience feels as exhausted and exhilarated as they do. The violence here isn’t cathartic in the Hollywood sense; it’s primal, desperate, messy. When help finally arrives and the monsters are shot dead, the relief feels hollow, because the damage is already done.
And then, just to twist the knife, Laugier gives us one last haunting image: Beth seeing her mother waving from the burning house, a ghostly goodbye. It’s a perfect final note—sad, surreal, and somehow hopeful. Because in Ghostland, survival isn’t about escaping the monsters; it’s about accepting that they’ve changed you forever.
Final Thoughts: A Dollhouse Built on Nightmares
Ghostland is not an easy watch. It’s uncomfortable, disturbing, and unrelenting—but it’s also masterful. It’s a love letter to horror as art, trauma as storytelling, and sisters as survivors.
It’s also, strangely enough, funny in a gallows-humor way. There’s something inherently absurd about a movie this grim still managing to wink at its audience. It’s as if Laugier is saying, “Yes, it’s horrifying—but you’re still watching, aren’t you?”
For those who like their horror with heart and their metaphors bloody, Ghostland delivers. It’s the kind of movie that crawls under your skin, rearranges the furniture, and leaves a note that says, “We just wanna play with dolls.”
Verdict: ★★★★★
A brilliantly demented exploration of trauma, survival, and the thin line between fantasy and madness. Not for the faint of heart—but perfect for anyone who’s ever laughed nervously while their world burned down.
