Shudder Secrets: Brooklyn 45 Explained: Old Ghosts, Paranoia, and Xenophobia

Ghost stories serve as a great way to explore the past’s perpetual influence on the present. This is very much true of writer/director Ted Geoghegan’s latest feature, Brooklyn 45. Set during the final days of 1945 and WWII’s conclusion, the film follows a group of friends who reunite days before New Year’s Eve.

Primarily set in an apartment, the feature explores each character’s past sins and what exactly they did in the war. Their actions haunt them in the present, no matter how many times they say, “The war is over.” They’ll live with the trauma and ramifications forever. When they decide to have a seance, old ghosts roar to the surface, unleashing paranoia and xenophobia.

This article contains some light spoilers.

Brooklyn 45, Old Ghosts, and Trauma

From the get-go, Geoghegan invokes the past. The opening features a crackly radio station that delivers news of the Allies’ victory over the Axis powers at the end of 1945. The radio announcer says 1946 should be an even better year, as soldiers return home. The station then shifts to jazz music, again fitting for the era, before the title card fills the screen in black and white.

Yet, what the radio announcer fails to address are the repercussions of war. At the behest of Lt. Clive Hockstatter, played by indie horror icon Larry Fessenden, the old war buddies gather in his Brooklyn apartment two days after Christmas.

Each carries immense scars from WWII. Hockstatter, or Hock, as his friends call him, lost his wife. Consumed by paranoia, she believed her neighbor, Hildegard (Kristina Klebe), spied for the Nazis. Because no one believed her, she shot herself. Desperate to contact her again, Hock demands his friends partake in a seance. So grief-stricken, he needs to know if the afterlife exists. He wants confirmation he can reunite with his wife. Hock admits to friends that after her suicide, he attended church three days a week. Enraged because the priest told him suicide is a sin, he wanted confirmation his wife wasn’t in hell, hence the seance and desperate need to hear her voice again. It’s an interesting exploration of faith, doubt, and religion, and Fessenden excels in the role, showing his character’s anguish and possible hope.

Another character, Marla (Anne Ramsay), spent WWII torturing prisoners to pry info from them. She quit that for a desk job at the Pentagon, but she also nearly died in a bombing. She says, “”I got crushed. I was calling out for help. All I could hear, from my bleeding ears, was those feckless cowards running away.” It’s a chilling piece of dialogue that fleshes out yet another character and illuminates her current scars, namely the fact she’ll never get over the war. Her limp is a physical manifestation of the past and the fact she almost died.

Mjr. Archibald Stanton (Jeremy Holm), meanwhile, lives with the knowledge he killed schoolchildren. German civilians dubbed him “Berlin Butcher.” The only one who doesn’t seem physically or mentally wounded is Mjr. Paul DiFranco (Ezra Buzzington). Yet, his issue is that he still lives with a war mentality, believing anyone who has a German accent is the enemy. Everyone tells him the war is over, but he refuses to believe them. The writer/director spends sufficient time really coloring in these characters’ backstories that influence all their actions and worldviews in the present.

Brooklyn 45’s Exploration of Paranoia and Xenophobia

Things go from bad to worse once the friends conduct the seance. Hildegard bursts into the door, only to face interrogation. Paul specifically believes she’s a Nazi spy. Nothing she says or does disarms him of that suspicion. He’s too much of a war brain. This is juxtaposed with her story of the American dream and her questioning about whether or not the whole thing is a farce.

Like the other characters, Hildegard gets her time in the spotlight. She has some of the most poignant lines in the film. After explaining her family moved to the States for a better life and that she works as a grocer for her father-in-law, she schools them on xenophobia and how easily it spreads. She says, “It’s easy to create an enemy. All you need is slanted eyes, different color skin, or an accent….It must be easier when you can’t understand their cries for help.” She lambasts Hock and his dead wife, Susan, for their obsession with her. Susan died, according to Hildegard, because that xenophobia consumed her. HIldegard says what needs to be said, no matter how painful.

The second half of the film shows the monstrous side of a few characters, specifically Paul. It makes for plenty of uneasy moments that rely more on human drama than supernatural scares. The war followed this group home, shaping how they view a German neighbor.

Overall, Brooklyn 45 may be Geoghegan’s strongest feature yet. It’s certainly the most layered. Considering our current divisions and today’s headlines, the film feels incredibly relevant. There are also some cool practical effects, but don’t be fooled. The real scares come from the way these Americans treat someone with an accent, someone a little bit different. Here, Geoghegan unmasks the truly frightful and ugly truths about human nature and the consequences of xenophobia. He also continues the rich tradition of using a good old-fashioned ghost story to explore the past’s influence on the present.

Brooklyn 45 arrives on Shudder on June 9. Keep updated on the streaming service’s latest content by following my Shudder Secrets column.