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Polish ghost stories [38]
It may be a valid point, Polish cinema industry was controlled and financed by the state until the late eighties, so you couldn't get funds for any stupid movie you wanted to make, and the writers/directors had to be careful in their choices otherwise they wouldn't get any money for the movie. And escapist genres (like horror/thriller) were looked upon as inferior, the only exception were silly comedies :)
So I can name a few Polish movies that deal with ghosts or other supernatural forces, but those forces are usually only a starting point, and the authors focus on more serious aspects.
There's a great classic fantasy/mystery movie from 1965 "Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie" by Wojciech Has (based upon the novel of Jan Potocki written at the beginning of the 19th century) - you have all there: cabalists, magic, ghosts, reincarnation etc.
Matka Joanna od aniołów (Mother Joan of the Angels, by Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1961, based upon the story of Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, dealing with the famous devil possession of a monastery at Louden, France)
Roman Polański made at least several movies with ghosts or other supernatural beings somehow featured, but all were filmed after he left Poland:
The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) - comedy
Rosemary's Baby (1968) - devil possession
Le locataire (The Tenant, 1976) - possession by or obsession about a dead person
The Ninth Gate (1989) - conjuring Satan
you can even add The Tragedy of Macbeth (1971) since there are witches etc.
Some of Krzysztof Kieślowski's films (La double vie de Veronique, 1991, some episodes of The Decalogue, 1989) were dealing with the Supernatural, too.
and lower quality cinema:
I saw a Polish movie from 1967 "Duch z Canterville" (based upon 'The Canterville Ghost' by Oscar Wilde)
I also watched a mystery movie "Medium" (1985) which was about a murder committed 50 years earlier and reenacted by some other people who were controlled by the spirits of the persons involved in the actual crime.
We had also a tv series in the 60's "Wakacje z duchami" (Holidays with ghosts), but it was for kids/teens and all those spooky things turned out to be something else, not supernatural, so I guess I can't clssify this series as a ghost movie.
that's what I can remember atm, I guess there must be more, but generally Polish cinema has always been more obsessed about the contemporary problems, first because of the communism regime, later because of the painful transition from a dictatorship and state owned economy to the democracy and free market with all funny/scary phenomena that accompany this process.
As far as talking with friends about spooky things, we did it (especially at night during holidays camps in the forest) when I was a teen. Ghosts, vampires, werewolves etc. aren't alien to Polish culture, but not prominent either.
