Our Take

The Phantom Carriage (1921) - Victor Sjöström captures the cold, wet breath of the grave in a film that haunted even Ingmar Bergman. It’s a New Year’s Eve séance where the last sinner to die must drive Death’s rickety cart and collect the souls of the damned. The double exposures look like actual ghosts caught in the machinery of the camera. It’s a somber, bone-chilling meditation on regret, rot, and the hope of a spiritual exit from a life of misery. This is ghost story-telling at its most primal and atmospheric.