Do you like scary pop songs?

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John S. Quinn-Puerta: If this is haunted by anything, it’s Underwood’s past crossover success. While it’s not exactly bland, “Ghost Story” feels produced to fit in on any radio format. A friend described it as Underwood’s “Wildest Dreams,” which feels apt: It’s a piece of lost relationship poetry that’s inoffensive but largely forgettable. 
[5]

Stephen Eisermann: A definite earworm, even if the catchiest part is also the cringiest (“haunting” and “wanting”? Oof). I’m pretty frustrated, though, that this is what Carrie is giving us when her voice appears to be at its prime. Her radio reign is seemingly over, so why release something that so clearly sounds like an attempt to go back to the top? Why not finally release the more engaging, if less radio-friendly, music she has proven she is so capable of (“Choctaw County Affair,” “Someday When I Stop Loving You”)? This is just good, but she’s way past giving us “just good.”
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Al Varela: Listening to this made me realize I’m just not really a fan of Carrie Underwood. Her voice is certainly one of a kind, but I feel like she’s never evolved past her usual brand of big pop-country power ballads. Yet, when I look back at her older singles, even if she still resided in that area, there was more of a bite or power to those songs that really sold her as a force to be reckoned with. “Ghost Story,” by comparison, is toothless. The production is mediocrity coughed up by a radio-friendly machine, the writing isn’t especially creative or sinister, and saying Carrie sounds good on it feels more like a formality rather than an honest compliment. Part of me thinks I’ve just grown past her brand of pop-country, but I also think by her own standards this just kinda sucks. 
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Leah Isobel: It kind of rocks how “Ghost Story” wraps a deeply vengeful conceit within the frame of a power ballad; Carrie makes these lyrics sound like she’s cursing the dude in the very act of singing them. Still, the bombastic chorus underwhelms after the hushed, twinkling intimacy of the verses.
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Ian Mathers: A good example of how a strong melody and a stirring performance can make some fairly nothing lyrics not as big a problem as they’d be in a lesser song.
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Vikram Joseph: There’s a moment in the chorus where the full force of the expensive country-pop production convinces you this could be a decent Fearless outtake. Unfortunately, it’s the high water mark of a song that’s melodically undercooked, lyrically juvenile and — I cannot think of a better way to say this — just annoyingly plinky.
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Alfred Soto: Confident her strangled wail can redeem feeble conceits, Carrie Underwood is at her most commanding, maybe even diva-esque. I don’t for a moment believe, for example, she has the patience to haunt a man’s dreams, no matter how cute.
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Ady Thapliyal: A depressingly literal take on “ghosting,” without any countryfied wit. IMO she got eaten up by Edna St. Vincent Millay.
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