Not only is it a romance movie to satisfy those looking for a classic date-night movie, but the added paranormal of Sam Wheat's (Swayze) early demise in the film and haunting of his close friends and family combined with the hilarious performance of Whoopi Goldberg (as the fake psychic who isn't so fake anymore) makes the movie a solid mix of drama and comedy.
Sam and Molly (Moore) are lovers getting ready to get married. In fact, they just bought a loft downtown and are in the middle of renovating it. Helping them with the renovations is Carl (Tony Goldwyn), who also works at the bank with Sam. When the couple gets mugged and Sam gets shot, he suddenly finds himself an ex-Wheat. After avoiding a bright and shiny light, he spends his time following Molly around, until one day when his mugger breaks into their loft, obviously looking for something. Realizing that his death might have been more than a simple mugging, he follows his killer, Willie Lopez (Rick Aviles), only to find that his best friend, Carl, set up the mugging to get some passwords that were in Sam's wallet. Apparently Carl is into a few underhanded dealings at the bank.
While following Willie, Sam runs into a street-side psychic's place owned and operated by Oda Mae Brown (Goldberg) and as he watches her give fake readings, he can't help but comment. Imagine both Sam and Oda Mae's surprise when she can hear him. Now the two try and team up to warn Molly of the danger Carl and Willie represent as well as figure out some way to get Sam's death avenged.
What is really interesting about this movie is how well actors like Moore and Goldwyn handle ignoring Swayze's presence even while he is walking around the room and trying to talk to them. When Goldberg enters the movie and allows for a bit more communication, all of the actors still have to ignore exactly where Swayze is because she can only hear him. So you have a lot of people looking around as they talk, or staring at a place close to, but not quite where Swayze is. It's an odd effect to have him almost completely removed from the scene.
At least it seems to offer some new special features unlike other older movies being released on Blu-ray at this time. Both Ghost Stories and Alchemy of a Love Scene are retrospectives that have interviews that seem to be fairly recent (with the exception of Moore's which are dated 1990). Seeing the various people responsible come back and talk about making the movie in general, and the pottery scene specifically, is really great. Other features include interviews with actual psychics and how close Ghost was to their own feelings, as well as a lengthy bit concerning the greatest romance movies and scenes from the past 100 years.
Ghost really is a classic movie that has a lot of great aspects to it. Part love story, part thriller and part comedy, it has something for pretty much anyone, and while the upscaled resolution doesn't come through quite as well in this release as other older movies brought to the media, it still looks and sounds great.
