Four horny turn-of-the-Century New England guys with old time dork pants try to get it on with the new chick in town. She’s deemed cool because she’ll do it with four guys. The big stud of the group tries but can’t get the missile off the launch pad, if you know what I be sayin’. Of course, when he’s out with the guys, he tells tall tales of slidin’ into home base.
When the woman goes to set the story straight in front of EVERYONE, Limpy pushes her down where she cracks her head on a rock-like stone. Thinking they killed the life outta her, they put her in a car and push it into the lake. They do this because each comes from upstanding families and have bright careers ahead of them. A murder, even a non-intended one, would totally smudge their reps.
As the car slowly sinks, the “dead” chick suddenly comes to and starts screaming. I guess the water was really cold. Unable to get out of the car, she drowns. Oops.
Flash forward 100 years and each of the horny murderers are now doctors and lawyers. They’re also old farts still keeping THE SECRET. They refer to themselves as The Chowder Society and get together once a year to tell ghost stories. And to fart. But the first rule of The Chowder Society is that you don’t talk about that time they killed that chick.
Everything’s all fine and gosh darn dandy until the dead chick comes back from, uh, the dead. Count how long it takes for Chowder Heads to start rolling. This chick is pissed. Can’t blame her; cold water is not cool. I mean, temperature wise, it is, but not socially. Once The Clam Chowder Makes ’Em Louder Society figure out what’s happening (i.e., revenge from beyond the watery gravy), they have to make her stop before she makes them stop. Breathing, that is.
A few solid spook moments, a bit of pants-tightening suspense here and there, even though the occasionally wambly story line is filled with too many distractions. Dead Woman, however, is sufficiently eerie and her corpse looks like rotted meat Jell-O™. That’s a lot tastier than it sounds.
Ghost Story probably was really scary back when it came out in 1981, but by today’s standards, four really old guys are scarier.