I was worried the Ghosts film wouldn’t do it justice but I couldn’t stop smiling

You have to be careful when reviving a TV sitcom for the big screen. 

While they can be brilliant, many end up like that kid buried in the sour earth of the cursed Pet Cemetery from Stephen King’s novel of the same name.

Sure, they might look like the dearly departed, but they smell funny, act weird, and sometimes try to stab everyone. 

And before you accuse me of exaggerating, if you’ve seen The Nan Movie, you know how evil bad sitcom adaptations can be. 

Which brings me to Ghosts: The Possession of Button House, a new comedy that continues the story of the beloved BBC sitcom, Ghosts.

Set after the final episode (but before the epilogue), the film follows Button House’s ghostly residents as they impatiently await the redevelopment of the mansion they call home.  

When protesters disrupt the construction, threatening the whole project, the spooks decide they need to reach their old friends, Alison and Mike, to get things back on track.

And when some local teens decide to use a Ouija board in the house, they’re granted a once-in-a-lifetime (deathtime?) opportunity to possess a living body and escape their eternal purgatory. 

Now, as a huge fan of the original show, I was as nervous as a psychic at a séance about this film.

Not because I thought it would be bad necessarily – Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby and the rest of the team who created the show wrote the script – but because Ghost’s ending is as close to perfect as a TV show can get. 

It seemed borderline sacrilegious then to dig up the series’ corpse and potentially undermine that ending. 

But Farnaby and his team clearly read the right words from the book of the dead because this is a pitch-perfect big-screen reanimation.

In fact, I don’t mind saying that I enjoyed the film so much that I’ve basically been smiling since I saw it, which is no mean feat, considering I’m having a tough month.

The jokes land, the characters feel like they did in the TV show, and most importantly, the story feels natural to the world the Ghosts team created. 

And that last point probably delights me the most. 

As I say, I love the ending of Ghosts, and my biggest fear was that the film would undo the bittersweet but warm goodbye we got. 

Perhaps it was because I was in a transitional period in my life when I saw it (I was about to move to London from Manchester), but watching Alison and Mike say goodbye to their ghostly friends as they left Button House with the reassurance that no matter the distance they’d always love each other was a message I needed to hear at that time.

I worried it was going to be a full David Brent: Life on the Road situation where an adored character is brought back by its creator just to learn the same lesson we watched them learn over however many episodes their TV show was.

The Possession of Button House, however, manages to feel additive, not derivative. 

The ghosts don’t relearn old lessons (okay, Pat does a bit); instead, their adventure allows them to grow and expand in ways that feel natural to the original show. 

There’s a promise of sorts that life (or unlife) will continue for the ghouls and gals of Button House that feels right – as though your old friends will always be there waiting for you when you need them.

Anyway, my own boring musings aside, the real question you probably have is ‘Is it funny?’ and the answer is ‘very ’, in large part because we get to see the ghost outside of the confines of Button House. 

I guffawed when Kitty got her excitable mitts on a taser and giggled at Julian learning how expensive train travel has become since the 90s (‘bloody Labour governments’). 

Still, I do have one small caveat. 

While I spent the entire 97-minute runtime with the ghastly grin on my face, I am very well acquainted with these characters, and I did question at times whether those less dedicated to the show would get all the gags. 

For example, if you know why a teenage boy eating a Scotch egg is funny, then you’ll enjoy The Possession of Button House. If that sentence confused you, then you need to watch Ghosts. 

Those worries, though, are probably slightly unfair; the film is standalone enough for people to get the broad strokes of the TV show. It’s just more rewarding if you’ve seen all five seasons of Ghosts. 

I’m struggling to think of anything I actually disliked about the film, really, other than it underused the always brilliant Kiell Smith-Bynoe, but that’s more a personal preference than an actual criticism. 

Damn your eyes! You know what? It can have the full five stars. Now you must excuse me; it’s nearly time for Food Club. 

Ghosts: The Possession of Button House will be released in cinemas nationwide across the UK and Ireland on October 23.

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