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

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They suggest a solid reason for why this film is not as scary as some of the others in the series, note that it has more humour than the later entries, and even suggest that Robert Hardy aside, it’s cast a bit like a sitcom. Broadcast by the BBC between 1971 and 1978, and, with one exception, directed and produced by Lawrence Gordon Clark, the first five episodes were adaptations of tales by the man most disposed to trail shivers along vertebrae, M. Released alongside it is a pairing of The Stalls of Barchester (1971), starring Robert Hardy and receiving its DVD premiere, and A Warning to the Curious (1972), with Peter Vaughan, both directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark.

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. An overjoyed Slarek revisits some of the finest TV hauntings, for the first time in high definition.Adapted by Clive Exton, it reimagined the events of James's story taking place in a contemporary television studio. From this point on, the film is in largely familiar haunted house territory, with a nightlight that repeatedly switches itself off of its own accord, an unflattering bust that seems to watch Parkin sleep, and an unseen figure that attempts to enter his room at night by loudly and aggressively rattling and banging the door. In this respect, he makes excellent used of his lead actor and some striking locations to create an unnerving sense of a disrupted normality in which undefined dangers seem to be stalking Parkin even in daylight.

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. Using long lenses to flatten the scenery and make the ghost indistinct in the background, John McGlashan's fine cinematography brilliantly conveys the ageless, ritualistic determinism of Ager's pursuit and signposts the inevitability of Paxton's demise. The film also abandons James’s layered approach to storytelling in favour of a more linear approach, but these alterations in no way detract from or dilute what made the story work so well in the first place.But for me, the biggest let-down has to be the climax, which dispenses with the original's disturbing ambiguity in favour of something too determined to explain itself, too explicit in its symbolism and too tainted by J-horror tropes to prompt more than a weary groan on my part. Brilliant series I just wish the BBC would employ other directors/storytellers with equally good ability to carry this on. The BFI will make all 12 of the classic BBC films from A Ghost Story for Christmas series available on DVD this year, with the first two volumes – each containing a double bill of chilling tales – released on 20 August. 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.

The case has been made by several commentators for reading Miller’s interpretation of the story as not a ghost story at all, but a study of a man suffering a mental breakdown and casting the apparitions as figments of his disintegrating mind. The film is told very much from Parkin's point of view, and aside from a foreshadowing opening scene of a bed being made at the hotel, it never shows us anything that he cannot see, hear or – in a particularly unsettling sequence – dream.

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. There are few other characters of real significance in the story, but all are well played, and as the hotel proprietor, George Woodbridge has an irresistibly funny scene in which he breathlessly mumbles a series of incoherent noises that stand in for a description of the facilities, punctuated by odd clear words like 'bathroom' or 'dinner at eight', all of which Parkin appears to understand. In 'The Signalman' (1976), based on the story by Charles Dickens, Denholm Elliott stars as a troubled railway signalman who has witnessed some unsettling sights and sounds along his stretch of track.

No definite image presented itself, but I was pursued by the very vivid impression that wet lips were whispering into my ear with great rapidity and emphasis for some time together.Patience is thus required, but compensation aplenty is provided by Haynes' growing frustration at Pulteney's stubborn longevity, which is wonderfully conveyed through smart use of shot repetition and Hardy's gradual transformation from cordial politeness to eye-rolling frustration.