Welcome to New England, Population: Ghosts
Ted Geoghegan’s We Are Still Here opens with that familiar horror setup: grieving parents, creaky old house, and enough emotional baggage to fill a hearse. Anne (Barbara Crampton) and Paul Sacchetti (Andrew Sensenig) have lost their son in a car crash, and—because therapy is apparently overrated—they decide to move into an isolated farmhouse in rural New England. It’s 1979, so there’s no Wi-Fi, no cell phones, and no Yelp reviews warning them, “Previous tenants violently eviscerated—would not recommend.”
Almost immediately, Anne senses their dead son Bobby in the house. Paul, being a rational man, decides that his wife’s grief-fueled spiritual encounters can be solved with the time-honored combination of patience, wine, and pretending it’s not happening. But the house, built by the Dagmar family—former undertakers turned corpse recyclers—has other plans. Let’s just say the Dagmars’ “business model” was… unsustainable.
The Haunted House That Hates Everyone Equally
Most haunted houses whisper or flicker lights. The one in We Are Still Here incinerates people. The ghosts here don’t bother with subtlety—they’re less “boo” and more “blowtorch.” When a movie opens with cold grief and ends with spontaneous combustion, you know you’re in good hands.
The film’s horror isn’t about jump scares or CGI specters. It’s about mood—a thick, tangible dread that seeps through the wooden beams like black mold and bad memories. This isn’t the kind of house where you call a priest; it’s the kind where you call your insurance company and maybe your lawyer.
Geoghegan makes the house feel alive in a way that’s both beautiful and deeply unsettling. Every frame hums with quiet menace. The creaks sound like breathing. The shadows stretch a little too long. It’s the sort of place that looks like it was built on bad decisions and unmarked graves—which, to be fair, it was.
Barbara Crampton: From Scream Queen to Grief Queen
Barbara Crampton—horror royalty since Re-Animator—delivers one of her most grounded performances here. Her Anne is a woman teetering between love and madness, grief and hope. She’s fragile but fierce, haunted by both memory and, well, literal ghosts.
Crampton plays Anne with heartbreaking sincerity, the kind that makes you forget you’re watching a film about a house that occasionally bursts into supernatural flame. Her pain feels real. Her hope feels dangerous. It’s the emotional backbone that elevates We Are Still Here beyond its haunted-house trappings and into something that actually hurts.
Andrew Sensenig’s Paul, meanwhile, is the ultimate skeptical husband archetype—like every “Let’s not jump to conclusions” guy in horror history—but with more depth. His quiet, stoic demeanor cracks just enough to reveal genuine despair. He’s the audience surrogate: we’re all Paul, pretending it’s fine while the world burns behind us.
Enter the Psychic Friends Network
When Anne invites her friends May (Lisa Marie) and Jacob (Larry Fessenden) to perform a séance, you know things are about to go from uncomfortable to call-the-coroner. May is an ethereal spiritualist type who seems one crystal short of sanity, and Jacob is the kind of guy who treats possession like a part-time job.
Larry Fessenden, indie horror’s answer to a fine aged whiskey, steals every scene he’s in. His performance as Jacob—half guru, half bewildered dad—is equal parts funny, tragic, and terrifying. When he becomes possessed by Lassander Dagmar, the vengeful patriarch ghost, the transformation is chilling and oddly cathartic. You can practically feel the centuries of resentment boiling up as he screams, “They used us!” It’s possession as therapy, and it ends with Jacob’s head meeting the business end of the fireplace mantle.
A Small Town That Puts “Creepy” in “Community”
The neighbors are the kind of folks who bake you a pie and then burn you alive. The McCabes—led by the unnervingly genial Dave (Monte Markham)—are the human embodiment of “don’t trust anyone over 30.” Dave explains, over beers and body counts, that the Dagmar house must “feed” every 30 years or else Hell itself goes hangry.
It’s a brilliant twist on the haunted-house mythos: the town isn’t the victim—it’s the accomplice. Everyone’s complicit, everyone’s dirty, and everyone eventually gets flambéed for their trouble. There’s something delightfully cathartic about watching the small-town hypocrisy literally burn to the ground.
When the Afterlife Has a Bloodlust
If the first half of We Are Still Here is mournful and atmospheric, the second half is a pyromaniac’s dream come true. The ghosts of the Dagmars emerge in full fiery glory, and suddenly it’s less The Others and more The Evil Dead meets The Wicker Man. Bodies explode. Heads pop. The walls drip with barbecue sauce that used to be people.
What makes it work, though, is the tone. Geoghegan balances brutality with absurdity, tragedy with pitch-black humor. It’s violent, yes, but gleefully so—like the ghosts are finally getting their union-mandated break. When Dave and his fellow torch-bearing yokels storm the house, you almost feel sorry for them. Almost.
By the time the smoke clears, the Dagmars have reduced the entire cast to ash, and Anne and Paul stand amid the wreckage like shell-shocked tourists in their own nightmare. It’s grimly beautiful. The horror here isn’t random—it’s karmic. Everyone gets exactly what they deserve, including the ghosts.
A Love Story Buried in Ashes
Underneath the gore and ghostly vengeance, We Are Still Here is a film about grief—and the monstrous ways we try to make it stop. Anne and Paul’s desperate hope that their son still lingers in the house gives the story its aching heart. When Anne hears Bobby’s voice, we want her to be right, even as we know she’s doomed.
The final moments—Paul smiling into the basement and whispering, “Hey, Bobby”—are devastating. It’s not a happy ending, but it’s a strangely peaceful one. After all, if Hell has to claim souls, at least it reunited a family first.
It’s that bittersweet absurdity that defines the movie: We Are Still Here understands that horror and love often come from the same place—our inability to let go.
A Retro Revival That Earns Its Scars
Visually, the film nails its late-’70s aesthetic without feeling forced. The color palette—muddy browns, muted blues, and blood that looks like it’s been aged in a wine cask—screams VHS nostalgia. The pacing is deliberate, the cinematography unflashy, and the scares practical. It’s like a lost John Carpenter film that took a seminar in grief counseling.
The sound design deserves special mention. Every creak, whisper, and muffled sob feels heavy, tangible, soaked in history. Even the silence feels haunted. You could watch it muted and still feel like something’s whispering your name from the corner.
Final Verdict: 9/10 – Ghosts, Guilt, and Glorious Gore
We Are Still Here is proof that indie horror doesn’t need jump scares or CGI demons to terrify you—it just needs atmosphere, conviction, and a basement full of ghosts who hold grudges. It’s a love story wrapped in fire, a eulogy wrapped in entrails.
Ted Geoghegan resurrects the slow-burn haunted-house genre with intelligence, brutality, and dark humor. It’s not just about death—it’s about what lingers after: love, guilt, and maybe a few smoldering corpses.
If grief had a body count, this would be it. And honestly? It’s beautiful.
