The Return of Peter Grimm: A Ghost Story That Doesn't Know If It Wants to Be Sad or Silly

Is it worth your time?

If you have a soft spot for 1930s melodrama and don’t mind watching a movie that feels like it was filmed inside a velvet-lined jewelry box, sure. It’s a strange, dusty little thing. Probably skip it if you need your ghost stories to have, you know, actual stakes or jump scares.

Lionel Barrymore is the whole show here. He’s playing a guy who dies, realizes he was a bit of a jerk, and then has to spend the rest of the movie as a invisible specter watching his family deal with the fallout. It’s kind of a bummer, but in a cozy, fireside-chat kind of way.

The Ghost Logic is… Interesting

Most ghost movies want you to be afraid. This one just wants you to feel bad for a guy who can’t get anyone to listen to him. There’s this one scene where Peter is trying to move a letter, and it feels like watching someone try to operate a claw machine that’s broken. You just want to reach into the screen and help him out.

The pacing is definitely a product of its time. Things move at the speed of a slow-growing plant. Sometimes the camera just sits there for ten seconds too long on a door handle, and you start wondering if the film reel got stuck. It’s almost charming, honestly.

Why I kept watching

There is something inherently funny about seeing a ghost act like a frustrated middle manager. He’s not haunting people in the traditional sense; he’s just looming over their shoulders, sighing, and looking disappointed. It’s relatable in a very specific, weird way.

The supporting cast is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Ethel Griffies is basically the only person in the room who seems to know what’s going on, and her reactions are the best part of the movie. She gives a look at one point that feels like she’s trying to communicate with a different film entirely, maybe something more grounded like Steamboat Round the Bend.

• The lighting makes everyone look like they’re being interviewed by a very polite lamp.
• The dialogue is stiff enough to use as a walking stick.
• Lionel Barrymore’s eyebrows deserve their own credit in the opening titles.

It’s not a masterpiece. It’s barely a movie, in some stretches. But it’s a perfect rainy afternoon watch if you want to see a guy learn that maybe, just maybe, he shouldn't have been so stubborn while he was breathing. The ending doesn’t really land with a thud, more like a soft tap on the shoulder. I’m okay with that.