If Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, how bad would it be if that woman was a ghost?  According to Ghost Story, that would be very bad indeed for those responsible for her scorn.  In the movie, the ghost is Alma (Alice Krige), and she’s been giving a group of old men nightmares for years.  These men, who collectively go by the name of the Chowder Society, meet once a month to tell each other ghost stories.  The group includes Ricky (Fred Astaire), John (Melvyn Douglas), Edward (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) and Sears (John Houseman).  How Alma and the Chowder Society are connected is the central mystery of the story, and I don’t want to give that away up front.  It involves an ill-fated summer romance when all parties were much younger, which led to an accident that became an unspeakable tragedy.  Despite their best efforts to put what happened behind them, the past has not stayed in the past.

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