That’s the spirit! Check out my full Ghosts movie plot recap (My 4-star review of Ghosts: The Possession of Button House is here)
The film picks up after the end of the fifth and final TV series. Alison, who inherited the haunted Button House from a distant relative, and her husband Mike have sold to a developer who will convert the manor into a hotel. The couple have moved away and are bringing up their baby daughter Mia. The ghosts remain, rarely visible to humans. Alison could see them after an accident in Series 1, but Mike could not.
However the development has been put on hold and the ghosts are bored, their days occasionally enlivened by a postcard from Alison and Mike, as long as it falls writing-upwards after being put through the house’s letterbox. (Most of the ghosts can’t move anything from the real world. Dead Tory MP Julian – the one with no trousers – can, with great concentration, move real objects. Robin, the caveman struck by lighting thousands of years previously while hiding from a bear, can affect electricity for example switching torches on and off.)
Three teens approach Button House in the dark. One, Jack, leaves the others and scrambles under the security fence, saying he will signal or text the others once he is in the house. He gets inside via the cellar though once upstairs he can’t get a phone signal so uses his torch to tell the other two to come up. The three initiate a seance using a scented candle from Jack’s foster mum. They don’t realise the ghosts are with them, and use the Ouija board, which spells out LEAVE. It is Julian the dead MP, and he’s trying to say “Leave Europe” but doesn’t get that far; and in any case Pat the scoutmaster tells him we have already left the EU.
Sammy, one of the intruders, explains how a ghost can take over one’s body, intoning the words as she does so, and Fanny momentarily possesses her. The teens are scared and rush home. Jack gets back to his foster home and climbs in the window. He overhears his foster parents talking about paperwork regarding him, that he has been with them longer than expected and it won’t be surprise to him. He thinks they will be asking him to leave, so he packs a bag to run away.
Protestors arrive at Button House and set up camp. They are protesting the plans for the new golf course to go with the hotel. “Oak trees not golf tees” they shout. The ghosts are initially rather outraged by the intruders on the estate. As time goes on Fanny in particular learns something from visiting their camp and listening to the women there, though at first they are horrified and want Alison to come and sort everything out so the hotel development can go forward. However the ghosts cannot leave the grounds to go and find her.
Soon reporters turn up to interview the protestors, with the local MP Richard Move claiming to support the hotel development while also supporting the eco-warriors’ right to protest.
The three teens return to Button House with more friends. Jack agrees to intone the words about being a vessel, and Julian pops into him. Teen Jack is now Spirit-Jack and can see the ghosts, though he is scared. Julian is thrilled to have Jack’s human body and rushes off to find Alison, though he forgets he can no longer walk through closed doors.
The ghosts play their food game where they discuss what they would most like to eat. Pat wants a full English including white toast which has only been buttered once it is cold, and I can’t disagree with that.
Julian goes to a shop and tries to get an old man to buy him cigarettes but the tenner he found with Jack’s phone is not enough in this day and age.
Spirit-Jack struggles, despite the best efforts of Kitty and Pat to help him – Kitty talks to him about dancing but he cuts her short and tells her she can’t dance as she doesn’t have any music, which upsets her. Spirit-Jack and Julian are also starting to feel ill.
Julian catches a train to Axminster where Alison and Mike now live. A Tory when alive, he is disappointed to discover that privatisation has not led to cheaper rail fares. He can’t afford a ticket so sneaks through the barriers.
Spirit-Jack is still unhappy. He then overhears regency poet Thomas writing poetry out loud (Thomas is still in love with Alison, the previous owner of Button House). Jack tells Thomas not to get too attached as he will get hurt, but Thomas tells him that is how to feel love and that Jack should give people a chance.
Julian arrives at Alison and Mike’s house, though initially Alison doesn’t believe this teenager in a hoodie is Julian. He convinces her that it is he, and they allow him to stay the night. He thoroughly enjoys dinner as he can eat for the first time since 1994, though they won’t let him drink any wine as he is too young. Alison tells him he has to give the teenager his body back.
Thomas explains to the other ghosts about Jack’s sad upbringing (his mother died, and he then lived with various couples all apparently called Foster). Pat realises Jack is in the care system and lives with foster parents.
The ghosts discuss their foodie guilty pleasures. Jack finally joins in – his guilty pleasure is a Nando’s.
A middle aged ecowarrior called Janine catches the eye of Robin the caveman.
One of the teens, Sammy, visits her medium grandmother with questions about what happens if a spirit takes over a human body. Her gran tells her that if they don’t swap back in time both “will be lost”.
Robin discovers Janine has been gathering wood and leaving bundles of it in the cellar. He shows the other ghosts who realise she is going to burn down the house.
The next morning Alison and Mike are going to drive Julian back to Button Hall, however Jack has been reported missing and the police are waiting out the front of their house. They decide to leave by the back way and get the train.
The ghosts overhear Janine on the phone to Richard Move, the local MP, who is clearly paying her. She hides the mobile in the outside loo. Robin is extremely disappointed in Janine!
At the station Alison realises Julian has Jack’s phone, and makes him call Jack’s parents to say he is fine and coming home. However they hear Alison in the background and think he has been kidnapped and she is making him say this.
On the train, Alison meets a ghostly conductor who haunts the whole line after falling off the nearby viaduct. Mike goes off to change Mia. A woman sitting behind has realised Julian is missing teen Jack, and calls the police. At the next station the train is locked down. The ghostly conductor helps Alison and Julian get off the train and they escape. She calls Mike, who gets off at the next station, but he can’t find a taxi that will take him and Mia to pick up Alison and Julian and then take them all on to Button House (some distance away). An older woman coos at Mia and Mike gets her to drive them, picking up Alison and Julian.
Spirit-Jack is desperate for Julian to return as he is fading. He and the ghosts wait by the big gates of the Button estate. Julian, Alison, Mike and Mia arrive, driven by the woman Mike met at the station. However before they can get inside and swap Julian and Jack back, the police arrive and take them away.
Jack sees his friends cycling past, though as he is a spirit they can’t see him. He remembers their first visit to the house: rushing back inside, he gets Robin to activate the torch which signals from the upstairs window. They come inside and the teens swap bodies with Pat, Thomas, Fanny, Robin, Kitty and the Captain. The ghosts, in their borrowed human bodies, can now leave the perimeter of Button House. They borrow the teens’ bikes and cycle haphazardly into town. Robin is doing wheelies. Pat has to teach Thomas how to ride a bike, which brings back fond memories of teaching his own son to ride.
The plan is to show Janine’s incriminating phone, which they have taken from its hiding place, to the police. However it is run over by various vehicles, and the plan changes – instead they will break into the office of Richard Move MP and look for evidence there.
Robin and the Captain head to the office, though the Captain is almost waylaid by an advertising hoarding of an attractive man in boxers. Breaking in, it takes a while to work out how to access the computer, and then to find the right file. They find a map of an airfield and various documents and Robin, who has lived on that piece of land for thousands of years, recognises the airfield and buildings as the plot of Button House and its estate. The MP wants to burn down the house so the hotel can’t go ahead and he can presumably buy the land cheaply for his airfield.
They start printing out before deciding it would be easier to simple steal the computer,which they do. The police and Richard Move arrive there, alerted to the break-in. However the MP soon hurries the cops outside when he notices the pages already printed out and what they contain. He tries to call Janine to warn her not to go ahead with the plan to burn down Button House but it goes to voicemail, so he hurries over there.
Julian (in Jack’s body) is being interviewed by police, as are Alison and Mike. Julian tries to escape by saying he needs to go to the loo but the ways out are locked. Eventually he looks out of the loo window and sees Pat, Fanny, Kitty and Thomas in the teens’ bodies, outside. A police car comes in with a new suspect; Pat sneaks into the police car and tries to trick the police via their radio but his jargon is way out of date (he claims there is an armed robbery at the Midland Bank, a brand which no longer exists in the UK). They come outside but Pat locks himself in and drives off, all units following him. The other ghosts sneak in, with Fanny mooning at the desk sergeant to distract him. They find Alison, Mike and baby Mia. Mike has locked some cops in a room. As everyone escapes Thomas is tasered and Kitty then tasers the policeman in return. They all escape on the bikes, Thomas giving Alison a lift on the back of his bike and having an enjoyable fantasy about her as they go.
Back at Button House the ghosts enter via the cellar but Janine is already there, setting the fire. Lighting a match, she is disturbed by Richard Move who has rushed over to tell her not to go ahead with their plan; the shock means she drops the match onto the accelerant and the place catches alight. As the flames rise, with the ghosts in the teens’ bodies trapped, Pat arrives back in the police car. He drives into a pole holding up some scaffolding, which in turn is holding up a tarpaulin which has filled with water. The water pours down and extinguishes the flames. Janine and the MP have run off with Robin in pursuit.
Upstairs Alison sits Julian down with the now-fading Spirit-Jack above and they merge. Julian leaves Jack’s body. The candle lit at the start of the seance goes out. Jack still sits slumped in his chair and everyone fears he has died, until eventually he wakes up.
In the woods, Janine and Richard Move are hiding, while the police look for them. Robin manages to activate Richard’s mobile phone torch, illuminating them. The police find them and the two immediately blame each other for the crimes, with Janine telling them the MP had paid her to start the fire.
The other ghosts prepare to give up their human forms, though Kitty is keen to enjoy being human again for a couple more hours. Alison gives Pat a scotch egg for him to eat while he still can. He munches through it even as the spirit of the teen whose body he has borrowed tells Pat he is allergic to eggs.
Alison explains to Jack that you don’t have to be related by blood to be family, and the ghosts give up the teens’ bodies.
The police turn up at Button House – outside on the drive all the loose ends are tied up:
Jack reunites with his foster parents and discovers that he misunderstood when he overheard them talking about Jack and paperwork. He had assumed they wanted rid of him. They explain that if he would like to stay, they would like him to be with them permanently. Jack is delighted. They also aren’t going to press charges for Jack’s alleged “kidnapping”.
The police are taking away Richard Move MP and Janine-the-fake-eco-warrior, while Alison explains that all the evidence they need is on the computer that the Captain and Robin stole from his office.
Thomas tells Alison that he no longer wants her to kill herself to be with him; he has realised that it is the fantasy of being with Alison that he enjoys so much.
Fanny no longer wants to fight against the protestors; a group of them start talking about the business opportunities in eco-land management, and that they are greater than for traditional development. Barclay Beg-Chetwynde, the Button House neighbour, overhearing that the protestors’ ideas could actually mean more money, immediately moves to discuss the options with them, explaining he has a bigger estate next door. It looks like the hotel will be going ahead, but with eco-managed grounds.
Jack rushes back inside. He can’t see the ghosts but calls for Kitty, then plays some music through his phone and starts dancing; she is there too, dancing and having the time of her life.
The ghosts are playing games,with Pat asking questions mostly based on his spin round the town in the police Astra.
Julian points out that the dead still have something to teach the living.
Another postcard drops through the front door – this time with Jack and his friends on the front.
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