Writer/director Adam Sigal’s Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose (U.K., 2023) is not a horror film, but for fellow fans of Fortean phenomena, it’s an entertaining watch based on the true-life story of Gef the Talking Mongoose, AKA the Dalby Spook. It wavers from the amusing to the comical to the philosophical throughout, never quite settling on any of these tones.
Simon Pegg portrays Dr. Nandor Fodor, who was a real-life parapsychologist and psychoanalyst. Fodor learns about Gef from Dr. Harry Price (Christopher Lloyd playing another real-life person, a psychic researcher and author), who implores him to travel from London to a rural area of the United Kingdom to investigate the absurd-sounding mystery. Price claims to have heard Gef speak without ever seeing the animal, so Fodor is skeptical from the get-go. Fodor travels with his assistant Anne (Minnie Driver) to the farm of the Irvings (Tim Downie and Ruth Connell), who claim that Gef (voice of Neil Gaiman) is always around but is wary of speaking or appearing to those who don’t believe in him.
With the subject matter at play, Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose should fully embrace absurdity and weirdness, but the film instead merely flirts with these qualities, resulting only in a rather light cinematic diversion. It’s well crafted, beautifully shot by cinematographer Sara Deane, and boasts solid performances from its well-known leads and supporting players, however, the final result being a colorfully droll take on what exactly “belief” might mean, what belief means to different people, and how events considered supernatural might affect people differently.
Saban Films and Paramount Pictures present Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose, which is available to buy or rent on video from September 19, 2023.
