Ghosts of War is a 2020 British supernatural horror war film written and directed by Eric Bress. The film stars Brenton Thwaites, Theo Rossi, Skylar Astin, Kyle Gallner, and Alan Ritchson. It was released on DirecTV on 18 June 2020.
Plot
During the Allied campaign across France in 1944, five troopers of the 82nd Airborne Division are assigned to guard a chateau. En route they ambush a German-captured jeep, executing the occupants who survive the initial attack, before encountering a group of Jewish refugees. They arrive at their destination, and the troops they’re replacing clear out hurriedly. Chris, the group’s commander, interprets a repetitive banging sound coming from the fireplace as Morse code, which Eugene transcribes as saying “I have no legs”.
Eugene later finds a journal kept by a German soldier detailing the fate of the Helwigs, the former owners. The Germans, having discovered the Helwigs had been sheltering Jews, brutally murdered them by burning the father alive, hanging the daughter and drowning the son in a bathtub. As Eugene is transcribing another Morse code message, his hand moves without his volition to spell out the message “If you leave, you die”.
That night, a German patrol attacks. The Americans kill most of their number but Butchie is mortally wounded diving on a grenade. Elsewhere, the men witness some of the Germans being killed by unseen forces in the same manner as the Helwig family. Before he dies, Butchie rants that what the men are experiencing isn’t real and exhorts Chris to “remember”.
