Warning: Spoilers for Ghosts: The Possession of Button House ahead. You have officially been warned by the spirits of Button House.

Bringing Ghosts back after five brilliant series always came with a little bit of risk. The BBC comedy had already given its characters a pretty great ending, and there was every chance that returning to Button House for a feature film could have felt unnecessary. Thankfully, Ghosts: The Possession of Button House knows exactly what fans have missed about this group and gives us plenty of reasons to spend another 97 minutes with them.

Directed by Simon Hynd, who also worked on the series, the film picks up after Alison (Charlotte Ritchie) and Mike (Kiell Smith-Bynoe) have left Button House with baby Mia, while plans to turn the property into a hotel and golf resort have stalled. That leaves Pat (Jim Howick), Julian (Simon Farnaby), Kitty (Lolly Adefope), Fanny (Martha Howe-Douglas), Robin (Laurence Rickard), Thomas (Mathew Baynton), the Captain (Ben Willbond) and Humphrey (also Laurence Rickard) with very little to do and plenty of time to miss the one living person who could actually see them.

Possession Gives the Film Its Biggest Laughs

Things change when a group of teenagers break into Button House looking for a spooky night and accidentally help the ghosts discover something completely new: under the right circumstances, they can possess the living.

It is a simple idea, but a very good one for taking Ghosts from a half-hour sitcom onto the big screen. Suddenly these characters who have been stuck in Button House for centuries can experience the outside world again, and the writers have a lot of fun with everything that opens up. It gives the film a bit more scale, a few bigger set pieces and a more cinematic feel, while still feeling completely like Ghosts.

Scott Ellis Watson is especially good as Jack, one of the teenagers who ends up getting much more involved with the ghosts than he ever expected. We are, of course, totally not biased towards a fellow Scot, but he really is brilliant here and fits into the world of Ghosts so naturally. There are fewer scenes with the younger characters than I thought there might be going in, but that works in the film’s favour.

The possession storyline also leads to some of the film’s funniest moments. Watching Julian loose in the modern world is every bit as entertaining as you would hope, especially when he discovers just how expensive everything has become. The way Watson picks up Simon Farnaby’s mannerisms and delivery is brilliant too, right down to Julian’s familiar “Ord-ah! Ord-ah!”

You can really feel how well the writers know these characters and how much they still care about them, which probably helps when so many of them are also playing the ghosts themselves. Bringing Ghosts back as a film could easily have gone wrong, but I really think they hit the nail on the head with this and made the right choice in bringing Button House to the big screen.

There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments throughout, and seeing it with an audience made that even better. Pat getting involved in a police chase, the Captain going around a roundabout twice and Fanny finding a rather memorable way to distract the police were all highlights for me. Kitty trying desperately to convince the teenagers that she is cool is also exactly as funny as it sounds.

Fans will find plenty of smaller callbacks dotted through the film too, including Pat’s spaceship, Mike’s song and the return of “a concerned neighbour”. None of them feel forced in for the sake of reminding us of old episodes. They are just little rewards for people who have spent years with these characters. At the same time, you definitely do not need to have watched the series to enjoy the film. I went with someone who had never seen a single episode and they still found it just as funny and had a great time with it, so the film does a good job of welcoming newcomers without slowing everything down for existing fans.

The Emotional Side Still Works

What surprised me slightly was just how emotional some of it became. Ghosts has always been very good at slipping something heartfelt between the jokes, and the film keeps that part of the show intact. Somehow, Pat eating a scotch egg manages to become one of the most emotional scenes in the whole thing. On paper, that sounds ridiculous, but anyone who loves Pat will understand why it is sweet, funny and a bit heartbreaking all at once.

The Captain also gets some lovely material, including a moment connected to Havers that absolutely got me. There is something especially nice about Fanny calling him James too, and after watching these characters grow across five series, those smaller moments between them mean a lot.

Thomas finally gets one of his romantic fantasies fulfilled when Alison rides behind him on a bike, Fanny gets her own unexpected introduction to modern feminism, and Robin develops a crush on an environmental protester who, admittedly, does look quite a lot like him. Everyone gets something to do, which has always been one of the strengths of Ghosts. Even with a bigger story happening around them, nobody gets forgotten.

A Lovely Return for Fans

Charlotte Ritchie and Kiell Smith-Bynoe slip straight back into Alison and Mike as though they never left, and it is such a joy seeing them caught up in another Button House adventure together. Their relationship with the ghosts is still such a big part of what makes Ghosts work, and it is lovely having Alison back with them again after their goodbye at the end of the series.

There are points where you can feel the story stretching beyond the length of a normal Ghosts episode, but there is so much happening that it never bothered me much. The final part of the film is surprisingly action-packed for a BBC sitcom, with police, bikes, chases and genuine danger all thrown into the mix.

It still never loses the cosy feeling of the television series, though. The stakes are bigger, but the characters have not suddenly become different people just because they are on a cinema screen. It is still silly, warm and very British, and that is exactly what I wanted from it.

For CultureCues, I loved Ghosts: The Possession of Button House. It has everything I wanted from a return to Button House: plenty of laughs, lovely little callbacks for fans, some surprisingly big set pieces and those emotional moments that Ghosts has always managed to sneak up on you with. The film does not try to reinvent what made the series so good, and I am very glad it doesn’t. After five series with this wonderfully strange little family, getting one last adventure with them feels like the perfect way to say goodbye… Although, if Mia ever happens to start seeing ghosts too, I certainly wouldn’t complain.

CultureCues Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5)

I also had the chance to speak to some of the cast at the London premiere, which was very cool as such a big fan of the series. We’ll have more from the premiere and those conversations coming soon on CultureCues, and you can also check out our socials @culturecuesuk for clips and more from the night.

Ghosts: The Possession of Button House is in UK and Irish cinemas now.

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