Be Excellent To Each Other

Well for me, Christmas isn't Christmas without a cracking ghost story, and they've been sadly lacking this year. So hopefully this will be one. Of them.

More M. R. James, plskthnx.

I'd like to be the first to say that this will be a complete disappointment, just like Doctor Who and Day of the Triffids - see those threads for details

Earlier this year I caught a R4 dramatisation of an MR James as I was driving back from Leeds (to Southampton). Can't remember what it was called, but it involved a coastal town, an antiquarian bookseller, a film(or radio) crew of some sort, a tower and some lurking evil. It made the M1 a much more pleasant experience

Ah, MR James! Yes, completely agree with you both there, as his stories are wonderful, and more so at Christmas.

I was very disappointed this year that the Beeb didn't do their usual Ghost Stories for Christmas, even though a lot of those are repeats anyway of course, still some of the MR James stuff still isn't available on DVD (at least they weren't the last time I looked) so it was sort of a one off chance to see them and tape them.

I did watch the repeat this year of the excellent Crooked House, but overall have still felt rather starved of my festive ghost fix.

Er, Turn of the Screw is written by Henry James.

But yeah, MR James is good fun. Used to scare myself shitless as a youngster reading his short stories.

We know! (At least, I hope we all do).

I think the point was, we'd all just like more ghost stuff on the tellybox, like MR James and whoever.

Aha!

Spooky good, that.

Pah, I was really disappointed with this, it seemed to go out of it's way to go 'Ooooo, this is really spooky', not a patch on the Deborah Kerr film version. Oh and once again, another prime example of a music editor needing to be killed, killed with sticks.

I didn't see it. Explain.

Far too much reliance on music and wooshy noises to illicit the 'Oooo, this is spooky'...as with Dr Who, just too much of the bloody stuff. I swear they think they are writing for the silent movies.

Ah, that. I thought you meant they'd butchered existing pieces of music, which is a massive peeve of mine.

Christ, that was a bit rubbish. I can't even go into specifics it was that bland.

It was pretty meh. I kept thinking I've seen an adaptation before but actually that was something else (and better, tbh) with Nicole Kidman.

The Others?

I've still to watch this (Screw) and it's on my V+ box waiting. I will get round to it though and report back accordingly.