It's somehow ironic that some non-film-music-fan people, with whom I have discussed about this score, have the opinion that GHOST STORY has a bad score because the music is almost all the time "in your face". I have even myself thought previously that in some sequences Sarde's music is definitely a little bit "out from the place" - but when I recently read the novel again, more carefully than before, and compared it to the movie, it all started to make sense - even Sarde's music.

In the novel Straub, believe it or not, USES MUSIC in some "spook scenes" - there seems to be a "musical motif" linked to a zombie army, wherever they go (just like the shark has in JAWS)...

So, it really starts to make sense - although the movie is VERY different from the novel, and so is the music - that Sarde's score really pays a "hidden respect" to Straub's original text in this way.

Plus, when I started to compare Sarde's gorgeous GHOST STORY score to Williams' JAWS, I even made a truly important discovery. Previously I have thought that, despite it's beautiful music, Sarde's GHOST STORY score is a little predictable by its way of repeating the same fright motifs throughout the movie. But only now, some 12 years later, I finally realized that in fact Sarde uses the motifs ingeniously: He deliberately introduces these motifs VERY WELL to the audience in the beginning of the movie, so extra tension is easily achieved throughout the movie when the audience thinks that "oooo, watch out, here the music comes again!" - but then, when the musical climax SHOULD come, it doesn't. Splendid reverse musical psychology, if you ask me !!

After almost 22 years, GHOST STORY the movie is still one of the best spook films ever made - and the score is gorgeous.

Clicking the link you can see one other reason why I love this specific movie - however, BE WARNED: THE LINKED DOCUMENT INCLUDES SOME VERY GRUESOME IMAGES that have the power to haunt you forever.
http://www.kolumbus.fi/kenneth.sundberg/fav_ghostory.html

That ain't a towel flapping in the wind...

GHOST STORY (the movie) manages to waste a good cast and score, due to the fact that the adaptation takes the lame road and turns what should have been one of the best horror films of the century into a tepid exercise, where the only memorable things are rot effects by Dick Smith, and the nudity of Alice Krige (plus Craig Wasson's nude window plunge at the beginning of the film).

The fault is mainly in Lawrence Cohen's script, which drastically simplifies the Straub novel - not a good decision in this case. (despite his script for DePalma's film of CARRIE, Cohen's adaptation of other King/horror work is less than stellar - take his adaptation of King's TOMMYKNOCKERS and IT, which also suffer from oversimplification).