Their ubiquity speaks to the power that genre cinema has in helping us understand not just mortality, but trauma, and regret, and historical bloodshed as well. For as long as they’ve haunted the collective cinematic consciousness, they’ve also undergone changes that reflect our increasingly cynical appetites. Some folks were naturally off-put by the uncanny, disorienting camera movement, but in the context of the genre it’s an inspired decision. Part of how the film resurrects the classical nature of a ghost story is truthfully in its focus on the (suburban) Gothic domestic drama unfolding inside the house. NeonSoderbergh’s specter observes silently and tries to understand its reason for existing, a goal it ironically shares with the living.