Ghost Stories for Christmas - The Definitive Collection (5-DVD set)

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Campbell reads his own story, The Guide, which directly references James’s work. This was clearly shot at the same time as the introduction, and while Campbell is more animated in his reading here, the same problems with room acoustics remain. Attempts to provide visual variety with occasional cutaways of the book being read or imagery described (wheat in the wind, landscapes, etc.) add little, and the introduction of an oscillating sinister synthesiser note is equally ineffective. It does the job, but it really is worth getting your hands on the story and reading it yourself. When the Hollywood remake machine really got going a few years ago, I remember my partner asking me why they only ever chose to remake films that didn't need remaking instead of ones that had botched up a decent idea. It's about money, of course, and it's long since been established that you've an easier sell if you're trading on an already famous name. The same principle theoretically applies to television, at least if you're selling advertising space, but when it comes to the BBC, which in theory is not required to bow to the non-creative demands of companies hawking products, then the motives are less clear. I, for one, was certainly a little bemused by the decision to remake what remains to this day the finest made-for-TV ghost story. On the surface, there seemed to be no good reason for it beyond producing a version that was in colour, set in modern times, and whose image filled the by-then standard 16:9 frame (which it doesn't, as it happens, having a 2.35:1 aspect ratio). But I was nonetheless intrigued. A lot of film horror has washed under the bridge since Jonathan Miller's superb 1968 TV chiller, and it was just possible that a new take could still prove effective if it approached the source material from a different angle. It certainly does that. The Turn of the Screw (1898), a novella by Henry James (no relation to M. R. James), was adapted as a feature-length drama by Sandy Welch and broadcast on BBC One on 30 December 2009. [56] Title Number 13 (2006, 40 mins): infuriated by the ghoulish noises made nightly by his neighbour, Professor Anderson is soon driven to investigate the diabolical secrets of the old hotel and mysteriously vanishing room 13 Kit Harington to star in BBC Christmas ghost story from Mark Gatiss". Radio Times. 19 October 2023.

Ghost Stories for Christmas with Christopher Lee ‘Number 13 by MR James’ (2000, Eleanor Yule, 30 mins)

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Whistle and I’ll Come to You (2010, 52 mins): John Hurt stars in this 2010 interpretation of MR James’s chilling tale Kerekes, David (2003). Creeping Flesh: The Horror Fantasy Film Book. London: Headpress. ISBN 978-1-900486-36-1. An eccentric professor finds a whistle carved from bone in a graveyard while on holiday in Norfolk. After blowing the whistle, he is troubled by terrible visions. [57] Burton, Nigel (22 August 2007). "A Warning to the Curious in Aldeburgh, Suffolk: East Anglia's Ghost Trail". worldtravelblog.co.uk. Archived from the original on 4 September 2010 . Retrieved 22 August 2010. Aubrey Judd, veteran radio presenter of The Dead Room, soon realises that elements of his own past are not as dead and buried as he perhaps hoped. [38] [41]

Introduction to Lost Hearts, The Treasure of Abbot Thomas and The Ash Tree by Lawrence Gordon Clark (2012, 11 mins, 11 mins, 8 mins) An electronics company looking for a new recording medium discover that ghosts in their research building could inspire the new format they were after. [52]Title screen of The Signalman, the 1976 adaptation. Because this was the first non-James story, the strand's title appears on screen for the first time. Lost Hearts relies heavily on the creepiness of its two young ghosts, which has been impacted just a little by the passing of time. Certainly when they're grinning and waggling their overlong fingernails, there is a sense of children play-acting at being scary and not quite pulling it off, but when their movements fall into the rhythm of the hurdy-gurdy music in a slow dance of death, the effect is considerably more disconcerting. And while their deathly make-up may well have been influenced just a tad by Night of the Living Dead, it also uncannily anticipates a look that was to become popular for ghostly children in the later J-horror cycle. Before Clark's films came under the remit of the BBC Drama Department it commissioned a Christmas play from Nigel Kneale, an original ghost story called The Stone Tape, broadcast on Christmas Day 1972. With its modern setting, this is not generally included under the heading of A Ghost Story for Christmas [52] and was originally intended as an episode of the anthology Dead of Night. Newly recorded audio commentary for The Ash Tree by writer and TV historian Jon Dear, incorporating material from author and editor Johnny Mains

Denholm (Elliot) was so wonderful in that role, like a tightly coiled spring. There was such tension in the character: he was always only a step away from insanity." Ghost Stories for Christmas with Christopher Lee ‘The Stalls of Barchester by MR James’ (2000, Eleanor Yule, 30 mins) The tradition of Ghost Stories for Christmas lives on. In 2018, Gatiss wrote and directed The Dead Room, a contemporary-set original story about an aging horror radio presenter who is haunted by his past. In 2019, he returned to M.R. James with Martin’s Close, starring Peter Capaldi. 2021 saw another new Gatiss adaptation, The Mezzotint starring Rory Kinnear. I love that Gatiss has become the shepherd of the Ghost Stories for Christmas cycle and he continues that tradition to this very day. BritBoxFilming wrapped recently in the South of England. The Mezzotint will air this Christmas on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer. Whistle and I’ll Come to You (1968, 42 min)Whistle and I’ll Come to You (2010, 52 min) Jonathan Miller and Christopher Frayling discuss the 1968 version (2012, 3 min) Introduction to the 1968 version by horror writer Ramsey Campbell (2001, 16 min) M R James original story read by Neil Brand (2001, 42 min) Ramsey Campbell reads his own M R James inspired story The Guide (2001, 27 min). I think [Jason fits] because the very first one of these [M.R. James adaptations] was Jonathan Miller’s Whistle and I’ll Come to You in 1968 which is a benchmark for [these dramas]. Miller cast Michael Horton who is a very funny actor. I remember saying to Jason, when I first talked to him about it, that I think Wraxhall is the most Michael Horton [style character] that I’ve done. Wraxhall is a pompous, middle-aged Englishman who thinks he knows everything. And he sort of loves the sound of his own voice and he loves his own company. A Warning to the Curious, The Signalman and Miller's Whistle and I'll Come to You were released as individual VHS cassettes and Region 2 DVDs by the British Film Institute in 2002 and 2003. [57] [58] A number of the adaptations were made available in Region 4 format in Australia in 2011 and The Signalman is included as an extra on the Region 1 American DVD release of the 1995 BBC production of Hard Times. For Christmas 2011, the BFI featured the complete 1970s films in their Mediatheque centres. [59] My house is 200 years old. If I looked in the corner and suddenly saw a man in 18th-century clothes just for a second, it’s not completely out of line with what physics teaches us. I think it’s more likely to be some sort of time thing than it is ghosts as it were. I love everything about [ghosts], and I love the storytelling tradition, and I love the idea of it. I’ll tell you what really fascinates me. I think ultimately the reason that the ghost story endures is that even if it’s a slightly pessimistic view of the afterlife, it means there is something more.