A LANDLORD is hoping a new ghost film shot in his Croydon town centre pub will reawaken some old spirits.
Dean Terry, who runs The Ship in High Street has produced a half hour film based on the tales of regulars who say they have seen ghosts lurking in the near 400-year-old boozer.
The amateur film-maker wrote and directed The Lock-In, which stars five actors from The Breakfast Cat Theatre Company.
Mr Terry, 51, said: "I loved stop-motion animation as a child. There wasn't any technology back then so you had to have a lot of knowledge in what you were doing.
"I would just do silly things like make wildlife documentaries in the park with my friends but when I got a bit older my life went in a completely different direction."
That different direction saw Mr Terry spend 20 years touring the world as a professional singer, including a four-month tour supporting The Godfather of Soul James Brown.
After a spell in hotel management Mr Terry became landlord of The Ship in 2005. But it was only in the last few years that the Steven Spielberg fan was tempted to step back behind the camera.
He said: "Over the years I heard all these different stories from regulars about the ghosts they have seen.
"There are a lot of these stories about so you start to think maybe there is something in them."
With support from the pub's owners Marston's Inns, the film was shot over five Sundays.
The plot features a regular telling a similar tale to the ones Mr Terry had heard, leading to stranger events later in the film.
The Lock-In will serve as a prequel to two 90-minute films to form a trilogy, which he is now writing and hopes to start shooting by the end of the year. But does Mr Terry, who bravely lives above the haunted pub, believe in ghosts himself?
"I wouldn't call myself a believer but I certainly wouldn't like to be the one to say, 'no, there's no truth in it'."
