I'm not sure if it was that attractive an idea but when we did take the plunge, we were consoled that Poltergay for all its initial oddity was pretty madly funny; and I think it’s even funnier that it's in French. 

Because when it came to renting Poltergay, there was a lot of humming and hawing. Really? You're renting a film called Poltergay? A film that is BELGIAN?

At least you can learn some new words while you’re watching it.  We gave Poltergay the thumbs up, which was a relief.  Not all supposed LGBT comedies are that funny these days.

Despite its incredible title, Poltergay is the sort of film that should have travelled further than it did.  Of course it’s a ridiculous idea, but behind some ridiculous ideas, as here, there is a closeted metaphor, screaming for air. 

In this case it’s the fairly obvious notion that male heterosexuals should not suppress their homosexual side.  Doing so is only going to lead to madness, the kind of madness that is only going to get worse, the more you shout ‘I am not gay!’

The back story is barely relevant to the action, and so Poltergay does take a little while to get going, but director Eric Lavaine doesn’t waste much time at least in creating mild heterosexual paranoia about the lead character’s inability to perform properly with his wife; but how could he perfiorm with the ghosts of five men in his basement, men who died in a tragic disco accident in 1979?  Men who won't leave him alone, and won't stop playing Boney M?

Proving that he is not gay is difficult for Marc in Poltergay; this is the lead character played by Clovis Cornillac.  For Marc's doctor, his wife and his best friend, it’s no problem at all — they simply encourage him to act on his urges, and his attempts to do so are very funny.

The stars of Poltergay are the five ghosts however, and when they arrive they do so with a bang.  You get to know them well throughout the film, the fairy five-some of seventies refugees, trapped in an endless gay party of their own making, and dancing round the house to a very catchy bongo-based version of Boney M’s Rasputin.  Although requiring no special effects other than comic timing, the scenes in which Clovis Cornillac desperately tries to persuade other living people that he is seeing these strange creatures, are hilarious.  If these scenes, of which there are many, didn’t work, there would maybe be little film left with Poltergay — but they do work, again and again, and are repeatedly funny and silly, and really split my sides.

The five ghosts keep the tempo going throughout, turning Poltergay into a smart and witty film about sexuality, instead of the series of poor jokes that it might have been — and I’m not trying to give it airs, but I found Poltergay to be more than just funny at times.   

At certain points you have to ask about closet homosexuality in males, and although the ghosts are ridiculous, the central character is very believable, plagued as he is by the gay world around him.  The ghosts aren’t even sexual —  they are simply parade gay characters, foolish and in tight clothes.  Marc however seems to interpret this as a quest into his own sexuality that he must follow to its conclusion, in earnest.

Crazier yet than all of these, is the film’s McDonald’s munching ghostbuster played by Michel Duchaussoy, a highly respected and deep voiced actor who voice dubbed Marlon Brando in The Godfather, but who has been appearing in continental cinema since the 1960s.  He looks a little like Clement Freud, and has incredible screen presence and comic timing.  It all works because Poltergay never descends to toilet humour, tending to joke around instead with tolerance, respect and sanity, fairly normal themes, which are great fun to make light of.

Reviews and blurb tend to refer to Poltergay as a spoof, which it is definitely not.  Spoof would suggest that there is some kind of meta-cinematic comment on either the genre or on ghosts themselves, but this is simply an accessible film that pretty much anyone would find funny. 

I don't know what a real gay ghost would be like, and of course this is a comedy so the ghosts are ultimately all great guys, but the real core of the action and the laughs are with Clovis Cornillac and his sexual quest, and his violent and hopeless reactions to his fast evaportaing sanity.