Ghost Stories; anthology of supernatural shorts; 114 minutes; The Screen; 11:45 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 9, and 5:15 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 10

Ghosts — the spirits of the dead who haunt the living — have inspired various interpretations in literature and film. Sometimes they’re malevolent, as in the poltergeists that toss the crockery around. Sometimes they’re gentle spirits, wafting in and out of rooms of old mansions, sadly remembering their corporeal days and often wishing they could leave, or dissipate, or something.

And sometimes they’re just in our minds, although we don’t know that. But that’s part of the fun, isn’t it? Is a dead spirit wreaking havoc, or are you imagining the whole thing?

The four supernatural stories in the film program Ghost Stories have all of these elements to some degree.

In Rose, director Hoku Uchiyama sets the tale in a rural area that seems like it might be Depression-era America, but it isn’t. The film begins when a boy finds a young woman sitting alone in the park. He spends the day with her, slowly falling in love with her, only to see her cruelly murdered. A year later, he comes upon her again, only she doesn’t remember him. Her tale of woe is the same, her fate is the same, and it dawns on him that she’s a ghost. The years pass, and he makes plans to save her — and himself. His older brother finds out about his young sibling’s “girlfriend” and plans to confront the couple. At the same time, the boy initiates his rescue plan — with unexpected results.

A soldier in Vietnam is battling cynicism and an implacable enemy in A.W.O.L. Sounds like your standard Vietnam War movie, right? Except the consequences here are more devastating. An attack on American troops holed up in a spooky castle leads to the soldier’s capture. When he regains consciousness, he’s been prepped for torture. Just as the session starts, he wakes up in a bed in a suburban house, with his wife at his side and their kids in the next room. It doesn’t last long; at midnight he’s being tortured again. It becomes clear the suburban scenes are just a respite from the darker reality. The soldier plans to escape, but the malevolent force that lives in the castle isn’t about to let that happen. Director Jack Swanstrom’s vision and David Morse’s acting make this a gritty film that’s tough to watch.

In Attila Szasz’s Now You See Me, Now You Don’t, a film from Hungary, an overprotective mother keeps a wary eye on her young son. Her scientist husband calls to report that “the experiment” is a success, because it works on mice. He brings a couple of mice home, along with a mysterious box. One of the mice disappears, and so does their son. The wife becomes convinced that the box did something to him. When the husband agrees with her — sort of — things rapidly come apart. Can she find her son? Will the husband let her? The performances by adult actors Erno Fekete and Dóra Létay carry the film, and through them we understand the family’s pain and sorrow.

The Danish movie Little Lise is essentially two films in one. The first is a black comedy that begins with a man putting the body of his wife in the trunk of a car as his 4-year-old daughter watches. He explains that Mommy’s sleeping. When she asks why Mom’s in the trunk, Dad says she’s sleeping heavily. They drive to a lake, where the girl is forced to help tie a rock to her mother’s feet. Dad rows a boat out on the lake to dispose of the body. He tells the girl he’ll always be there for her, and goes on to describe some plans he has for the future.

The first movie ends there, and the second begins. The girl has an invisible friend who doesn’t like Dad’s plans, and the friend takes over with deadly results. Little Lise makes a decent supernatural tale, but the first half works a lot better than the second.

Again, the actors add much to the film. Jakob Cedergren as the father and Sonja Richter as the mother really make you believe they hate each other. But an astonishing performance comes from Joy Nadia Jensen as Lise. In the opening scene, the camera dollies across a lawn to find her on the porch, where she’s standing absolutely still, head tilted, one tear leaking from her eye. Director Benjamin Holmsteen gives credit for the film’s inspiration to a song performed by Tori Amos. That explains a lot.

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