The Others (2001)

I was in need of a Christmas ghost story and this is a damned sight better than either "Strictly Come Dancing" or "Paul O'Grady: for the Love of Dogs at Christmas". A terrific homage to Henry James and with a great, spooky 5.1 sound design!

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The Shining (1980)

I don't know what's more scary: the sound design, isolation, score, time contraction, torrent of blood, twins, symmetry or Danny's machine-knit jumpers.

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The Enfield Haunting (2015)

Mark C was right. This is so much better than The Conjuring 2. Better detail, better accents, better cinematography, better performances, better characterisation, better dialogue, better scares, better tension. Just so much better!

One thing though, Trim phones don't make that noise.

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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The Conjuring 2 (2016)

The scariest thing in this film was a Morris Marina.

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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Whistle and I’ll Come to You (2010)

James Parkin, having recently placed his wife into a nursing home, decides to head to one of their old haunts to try and recapture some sense of their past together.

This loose but interesting adaptation of the M.R. James short story is about loss. Loss of the wife he knew, loss of mental faculty, loss of time and place, loss of what was.

The small cast consisting of John Hurt, Gemma Jones, Lesley Sharp and Sophie Thompson are, as expected, terrific. There's a bit too much over-reliance on spooky objects for my liking and the ending is pretty obvious but this adaptation is very good nonetheless.

I have one whinge. Why doesn't the title sequence mention M.R. James? Is says "Written by Neil Cross" but there's no "Adapted from", "Based on" or anything! The only mention is in the credits, which, as far as I'm concerned, is not enough.

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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Number 13 (2006)

How the opening of a hidden letter can seal a man's fate. A tale of curses, witchcraft and a missing room.

Whereas in previous adaptations, James's heroes/victims tend to be, with a few exceptions, fairly likeable academics caught up in their own little world, this time we have Greg Wise as Professor Anderson, an egotistical and supercilious historian. An easy man to dislike and to help us there's lawyer and bon vivant Edward Jenkins (played by Tom Burke), acting as a foil and irritating Anderson with his every act. David Burke makes a welcome return as the hotel landlord after his appearance in the previous A View From a Hill.

More heavy-handed (the sound design isn't exactly subtle and the feel of the film is reminiscent of The Haunting) than A View From a Hill but this works in the film's favour, slowly building the tension until the quite physical conclusion and the cracking of an Oxford don's empiricism. Good stuff!

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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The Ash Tree (1975)

Oh, yea!, Oh, yea! Oh, yea!
Local squire desecrates grave!
Curse wreaks havoc with wildlife!
Buxom wench suspected of witchery!

A fine and haunted performance by Edward Petherbridge as the Squire. Lalla Ward makes an all too brief appearance. A good, solid entry in the series with a killer ending that bumps it up a half-star.

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974)

A treasure hunt involving codes, in a monastery filled with cowled monks reciting Latin (and we all know how spooky Latin can sound). You know what this is, don't you? The Treasure of Abbot Thomas is a Dan Brown adventure! That is, if Dan Brown were any bloody good, it would be.

Again, a great cast, including the always spooky Anne Blake, but this time led by the wonderful Michael Bryant; whose character, while not as shouty as in The Stone Tape, is still very much assured in his beliefs.

The film captures the gentle humour in James' stories very well. The "slab cake" scene was hilarious. Plus there's a rather nice debunking of that most favourite of Victorian pastimes - a seance!

I do find it funny it's always M.R. James' religious characters who are supposed to be the rationalists :)

A rollicking good story with a few good scares!

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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Lost Hearts (1973)

Eleven-year-old Stephen moves to stay with his elderly cousin, Peregrine Abney, in a remote country house but will he reach his next birthday?

Spooky in that Water Babies/Secret Garden sort of way and containing some startling imagery but badly let down by the clownish performance of Joseph O'Conor as Peregrine Abney, who displays the sort of forced eccentricity you'd get in a bad Dickens adaptation. Lost Hearts would have scared the hell out of me when I was a kid but now? Not so much.

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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A Warning to the Curious (1972)

Atmospheric, steadily-paced, filled with dread and pretty gruesome for a TV adaptation of a James story, with a grisly billhook death at the very start.

Peter Vaughan leads a fine cast and is wonderfully understated as the down-at-the-heels, amateur archaeologist Mr. Paxton (it's always a treat to see Grouty in anything). After the previous year's The Stalls of Barchester, Clive Swift makes another appearance as the scholarly Dr. Black, subtly linking both stories. Make no mistake though, this is the far superior effort. Also worth a mention is Roger Milner as the odd antique shop owner.

A Warning to the Curious has one of the best scores I've ever heard, let alone on a television programme. Full of droned dissonance and rasping breathing that reminded me of the Nick Cave and Warren Ellis collaborations. Fucking brilliant!

Is it as good as Whistle and I'll Come to You? Maybe, maybe not, but it is a top-tier Christmas Ghost Story. Thank you, BFI for saving these wonderful programmes from the clutches of the ever negligent BBC.

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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The Stalls of Barchester (1971)

A Poe-like tale of murder, blackmail and guilt. A straightforward telling but tense, with a real sense of foreboding and filled to the brim with spooky details.
Good to see a Hyacinth-less Clive Swift, expert on the longbow, Robert Hardy and an extremely snotty Thelma Barlow.

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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The Signalman (1976)

In which isolation, confinement and impotence can light cinders in the darkest corners of the mind, cause vibrations in the soul and signal the most terrible of horrors.

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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The Innocents (1961)

The whisper of dark secrets can corrupt, even the most innocent. But who is the innocent?

"Big rooms get bigger at night" sums up perfectly the way that the rules of the universe twist and reform, when you're young, into something otherworldly; sometimes innocent and fey, sometimes cruel and dark. A beautifully spooky film - the angles, the framing, the sound-design, the depth and contrast.

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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Whistle and I’ll Come to You (1968)

An academic old duffer pipes open the doors of perception and peers into the unknown.

Michael Hordern in an M.R. James ghost story, directed by Jonathan Miller. What's not to like? Beautifully unnerving although I kept expecting Hordern to exclaim "Bear!".

Nope-Tober: Random Shit for an Ill-disciplined Mind

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The Fog (1980)

I could listen to Stevie Wayne play those smooth sounds all night long.

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Poltergeist (2015)

There's a unipig, the little girl's sweet, Sam Rockwell's in it, the little boy is an irritating little shit that's afraid of fucking squirrels (and he's called Griffin, for fuck's sake. Griffin? Sorry to all you Griffin's out there but...Griffin?) but, hey, it's better than the sequels to the original film. I miss Tangina. Terrible playout music. Just keep telling yourself, it's not as bad as the sequels, it's not as bad as the sequels, it's not as bad...

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Poltergeist III (1988)

Andrew: do not watch the first 40 minutes of this film again!

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Lord of Tears (2013)

This is a short review I did on Facebook back when the film came out. It ended with a discussion with the director Lawrie Brewster.

AL: Watched it on Thusday. Pretty good, creepy atmosphere, cool static cinematography, but terrible lead actor. His bearded friend would have been much better I think. Also the static shots led to too many edits. Instead of just sticking with the one shot of a scene and using the script and actors to tell the story it would use 20 different angles/filters/insects/spooky trees instead. Overall pretty good. Look forward to their next.

LB: Thanks for the comments guys! Terrible is a bit ott - I thought he played the role perfectly as an innocent/slightly camp/childlike man but hey ho agree to disagree but damned glad you enjoyed the movie and that you're looking forward to the next. Which hehe... we're in the middle of producing and guess whose the lead in that Andrew Liverod but the other lad you liked Thanks again guys! Big thanks to Pete Ellott for heads up and welcome here too!

AL: Lawrie: I think it was the fact that he was a little too teary fom the start rather than a gradual building of tension and hysteria - better Edward Woodward than Jack Nicolson. I really did like the static camerawork though - Kurosawa's one of my favourite directors and I wish other directors would follow suit. Don't get me wrong, I'm forever grateful that these indie films exist and that people like you have the balls to make them.

LB: Oh yeah man it's all good, im a horror fan too though so I've got an opinion just like you on characters/performances (and it's from that perspective I'm talking from.) Get this right... there are folks that LOVE his performance, I mean think it was great. Bet that sounds insane if you disagree right? but they did, I've heard it... read it... been told it. So there you have it. Now... get this... here are some folks that loved him and hated Lexy's performance for Eve hehe... As a director, every performance on screen is because that is exactly what I intend to give the audience. If he seems vulnerable soft and campy - well, well I meant him that way but I've found (and I digress here as this isn't related to you) that some guys are offended by his characterisation (which I kinda intended) just as some women are by Lexy's (which I've noticed in feedback from some.)

LB: Oh and yep Kurosawa is among mine too, as is Ken Russell actually haha (though I'm not a director like him per say!)

AL: Ah, it's really not that I thought him too effeminate, camp - that's not really me at all. It would have been awful if he'd been all Bruce Willis It's more that I prefer internal angush rather than external until it all become too much and a beakdown ensues. Does that make sense? Oh god, we're sounding like a pair of luvies! Another thing I did love was the Owl man's lines - terrific - very Lovecraftian!

LB: Hahaha and yep you're citiing something more on in the school of realism / nautralism but we have a sense of emotional theatricality in the film as intentional (in it's homage to the 50s/ 60s. It's subtle but intentional. With our next film we're producing we have a folk/horror 70s/gritty kinda feel. Think a deeply disturbing supernatural horror (think Straw Dogs involving daemonic ravens.) Part of my style of directing is not to embrace a style too obviously either sometimes leaving audiences wrong footed (which they can love or sometimes not love.) The Owlman I adore, and the credit to his dialogue all goes to our writer Sarah, and what I can say is that we will more of him! I'd love to produce a trilogy with it in time!

AL: One part of the film I wasn't sure about was the maternal relationship between the young James and Eve and the adult, sexual one. Was this driven by James and what he needed from Eve at the time?

LB: Yeah well I would describe it more as a maternal and romantic relationship. To me it appears that Eve initiates the relationship - though it is welcomed by a lonely James.

She comes along with the stew hehe, dances for him, joins him in the pool, kisses him etc.

There is a sub conscious attachment to Jamie, as the child she once cared for as a nanny (that she has forgotten, just as she has forgotten she is deceased.)

AL: I guess something like that was needed to keep the real relationship hidden until the big reveal.

LB: or better than forgotten - is repressed to say. Part of that lust for Jamie is a lust for life too, though that too is sub conscious. But the feelings are real, there was a bond between them (as nanny and child) though not a romantic one presumably haha, but as adults meeting out with the memory of that past, but with affections still there subconsciously, it was able to become a romantic relationship.

Well the relationships are always real - before and after the big reveal, it's just us as the audience that are catching up hehe - and the characters, with the revelations - but their feelings are always real.

Even when Eve is transformed, she doesn't kill James at the very end, once she finally has him in the basement. But spares him.

AL: Also, the Japanese influence at the end. How did you see that working within a traditional British, gothic ghost story. It did work though as you didn't break Japanese ghost story "rules".
Oh, and all ravens are demonic - they seem to made for zoom shot of their eyes with a corresponding CAAW!

LB: Yeah there is a great J-Horror influence (I love that sub-genre) and oh what are the rules though haha Yeah well the ravens have a role to play in Lord of Tears (notice the caws that foreshadow important events in the film).

These are referential in our sequal, in fact there are references aplenty between our films and even the product designs/ artworks etc - all part of this big mythic storytelling we're trying to achieve

AL: I do love that idea of world-building you have. Wondering about the 70's influences for the new film - I notice you mentioned Peckinpah's Straw Dogs - Argento? Anyway that's it for me tonight - all the best to you, Sarah and the rest of the cast and crew. Apologies for saying Euan's performance was terrible - maybe not the best choice of words.

LB: Pretty extreme choice haha do consider that you're placing him at the level of the worst performances ever. Very extreme haha - like all those cheesy slashers with terrible performances etc.

I'd say less so Argento and more like um... Freidkin (in terms of bleak intensity) and Don't Look Now It's a weird mix!

Original letterboxd review