Mark Gatiss's films The Tractate Middoth, The Dead Room, Martin's Close and The Mezzotint were released together as "Ghost Stories" in October 2022. Introductions by Lawrence Gordon Clark (2012, 39 mins): the director introduces The Treasure of Abbot Thomas, The Ash Tree, The Signalman, and Stigma A university museum curator is intrigued by the unfolding tale of horror told by an otherwise unprepossessing 19th century mezzotint. [43]

A decade after their release on DVD, the BFI have remastered the first four of the BBC’s much-loved Christmas supernatural tales on Blu-ray as GHOST STORIES FOR CHRISTMAS, VOLUME ONE, complete with all of the previous special features and new commentaries. An overjoyed Slarek revisits some of the finest TV hauntings, for the first time in high definition.It begins with 11-year-old Stephen (Simon Gipps-Kent), dressed in respectable clothing and a Brunelian top hat, being transported through the Lincolnshire countryside to the stately home of his elderly cousin, Mr. Abney (Joseph O'Conor). As his carriage approaches the hall, Stephen briefly sees two wan-looking children (Christopher Davis and Michelle Foster) standing in a field, their arms slowly arching in a synchronised wave. Seconds later they are gone. The following year, an expanded boxset featuring Robert Powell and Michael Bryant narrating M. R. James in the series Classic Ghost Stories (1986) and Spine Chillers (1980) respectively. [61] A young squire, John Martin, is on trial for murder in a court presided over by hanging judge George Jeffreys, but the girl he is accused of murdering has been seen after her death. [42] The adaptations, although remaining true to the spirit of M.R. James, make alterations to suit the small screen - for example, A Warning to the Curious avoids the convoluted plot structure of M. R. James's original, opting for a more linear construction and reducing the number of narrators. In addition, the central character, Paxton, is changed from a young, fair-haired innocent who stumbles across the treasure to a middle-aged character driven by poverty to seek the treasure and acting in full awareness of what he is doing. [9] After the first two adaptations, both by Clark, the tales were adapted by a number of playwrights and screenwriters. For The Treasure of Abbot Thomas, Clark recalls John Bowen's script "took some liberties with the story—which made it for the better I think...It's really quite a funny story until it gets nasty, although the threat is always there. James has a mordant sense of humour, and it's good to translate that into cinematic terms when you can. I'd always wanted to do a medium scene, and John came up with a beauty." [17]

Spectres, Spirits and Haunted Treasure: Adapting MR James (2023, 17 mins): a newly commissioned video essay by Nic Wassell exploring some of the classic BBC adaptations of the work of MR James. An aristocrat inherits his family estate and is haunted by visions of his ancestor's role in a witchcraft trial. [35] On reaching the hall, Stephen is greeted warmly by his cheerfully eccentric cousin, who seems particularly keen to confirm the boy’s age and the precise date of his upcoming twelfth birthday. Stephen also learns that he is not the first child to stay at the Abbey, but that the previous two visitors – a girl named Phoebe and a boy named Giovanni – both mysteriously disappeared. The presumption at the time was that Phoebe was taken by travellers and Giovanni ran away, but as Stephen explores the grounds he repeatedly catches sight of a boy and a girl who may well be the ghosts of the two missing children. In his screenplay for The Signalman Andrew Davies adds scenes of the traveller's nightmare-plagued nights at an inn, and reinforces the ambiguity of the traveller-narrator by restructuring the ending and matching his facial features with those of the spectre. [10] The film also makes use of visual and aural devices. For example, the appearance of the spectre is stressed by the vibrations of a bell in the signalbox and a recurring red motif connects the signalman's memories of a train crash with the danger light attended by a ghostly figure. [10] Has working on Count Magnus and the other Christmas ghost stories changed your view on the supernatural?An academic researcher repudiates local superstitions surrounding a devilish house in a cathedral city. However, repeated visions and noises during the night suggest he may be proved wrong. [34]

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. A Ghost Story for Christmas is a strand of annual British short television films originally broadcast on BBC One between 1971 and 1978, and revived sporadically by the BBC since 2005. [1] [2] With one exception, the original instalments were directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark and the films were all shot on 16mm colour film. [3] The remit behind the series was to provide a television adaptation of a classic ghost story, in line with the oral tradition of telling supernatural tales at Christmas. [4] In two programmes from the BBC's four-episode series from 2000, Christopher Lee plays M.R. James in his role of provost of King's College Cambridge at the dawn of the last century and relates two of his ghost stories to a small gathering of masters and students as they sit sipping sherry around a coal fire on Christmas Eve. Gold-tinted visuals of Lee and his attentive, over-privileged audience are intermittently peppered with stylised imagery from the tales themselves, none of which is a problem when you have a storyteller as compelling as Christopher Lee. A constant joy to listen to, he is also worth watching for his sometimes visually expressive delivery. Even the sinister notes of music do not detract from these very fine readings. Count Magnus has long been one of Gatiss’ favorite James stories so it’ll be excellent to see what he’s done with it. While the cycle has been particularly hard to find in North America, the good folks at BritBox have added all of the above, plus some other ghost stories, to their service. And on Christmas Eve Eve of this year, Count Magnus joins the ranks.

Short Sharp Shocks Volume Three

As we neared it, Henry Long felt, and I felt too, that there were what I can only call dim presences waiting for us, as well as a far more actual one attending us. Of Paxton's agitation all this time I can give you no adequate picture: he breathed like a hunted beast, and we could not either of us look at his face.” a b Pfaff, Richard W., "Montague Rhodes James", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Online Edition). Oxford University Press. September 2004. [1]. Retrieved 2010-08-15. An original tale written and directed by Mark Gatiss entitled The Dead Room was broadcast on BBC Four on Christmas Eve 2018. [38] Gatiss adapted and directed another James adaptation, " Martin's Close", in 2019 for BBC Four. [39] This was followed by his third M.R. James adaptation, " The Mezzotint", for BBC Two in 2021, and his fourth, " Count Magnus", in 2022. Top row (L-R): Rory Kinnear, Robert Bathurst, Frances Barber and John Hopkins. Bottom row (L-R): Emma Cunniffe, Nikesh Patel and Tommaso Di Vincenzo A View From a Hill (2005, 39 mins, standard definition): a young museum curator, Fanshawe finds himself in possession of a pair binoculars that grant him a strange new ability. Ignoring all warnings about their necromantic creator, Fanshawe carries out his research, but the bloody past of the area is best left undisturbed…