Ghost Stories for Christmas Volume 1 (3 x Blu-ray discs)

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Description: Broadcast in the dying hours of Christmas Eve, the BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas series was a fixture of the seasonal schedules throughout the 1970s and spawned a long tradition of chilling tales, which terrified yuletide viewers for decades to come. For many fans, they are still a traditional Christmas-time watch. Volume 2 contains the remaining original instalments – The Treasure of Abbot Thomas, The Ash Tree, The Signalman, Stigma and The Ice House – all newly remastered from original film materials and presented on Blu-ray for the first time. Later adaptations of A View From a Hill and Number 13 are also included, plus new and archive extras and a booklet. Commentaries and the 2020 adaptation of Whistle and I’ll Come to You aside, all of the special features have been sourced from the previous BFI DVD releases and are in standard definition. After an infamous demonologist is ridiculed on a television programme, its producer soon finds herself targeted by malevolent supernatural forces. [22] And that, for the most part, is the meat of the story. What holds the attention from this point on is Katherine herself, specifically her growing terror at what appears to be happening to her body, something actress Kate Binchy communicates with sometimes unnervingly convincing aplomb. Pleasingly, her affliction proves to be not the result of some delusion on her part but a real physical issue, one that terrifies her husband Peter (Peter Bowles), and is visualised as a unnervingly convincing make-up effect.

All of the films in this first volume are linked by the author of the stories on which they were based, one Montague Rhodes James, about whom I’ll have more to say in a minute. The first title, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, is technically not a Christmas Ghost Story at all but a stand-alone work made as part of the Omnibus arts documentary series and first screened on 7 May 1968, but it most effectively pointed the way for things to come. The first official Ghost Story for Christmas came when former documentary filmmaker Lawrence Gordon Clark adapted and directed The Stalls of Barchester, a single tale of the supernatural broadcast on Christmas Eve of 1971. It developed into a series when he did likewise with A Warning to the Curious the following year, and the year after he directed Lost Hearts from a screenplay by Robin Chapman. By this point, the Christmas Ghost Story had become a BBC tradition, and other titles were to follow, but that’s a tale for later volumes… WHISTLE AND I’LL COME TO YOU (1968)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] Released: 20th November 2023. Broadcast in the dying hours of Christmas Eve, the BBC’s A Ghost Story for Christmas series was a fixture of the seasonal schedules throughout the 1970s and spawned a long tradition of chilling tales, which terrified yuletide viewers for decades to come.

Three linked episodes tell the story of the ghostly secrets of Geap Manor, a recently demolished Tudor mansion in both the past and present. [50] Ghost Stories for Christmas with Christopher Lee – Number 13 (2000, 30 mins): Ronald Frame's adaptation of MR James's story is brought to life by the horror maestro Kerekes, David (2003). Creeping Flesh: The Horror Fantasy Film Book. London: Headpress. ISBN 978-1-900486-36-1.

Spooky: ‘The Keeper’ (1983)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/tractate-middoth.html Cast announced for Mark Gatiss's directorial debut, The Tractate Middoth, on BBC Two, BBC Media Centre press release 20 November 2013 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] Wheatley, Helen (2006). Gothic Television. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-7149-2.

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." As well as fresh, filmic transfers of each film, the BFI has provided a plethora of special features for fans of the series: director introductions, audio commentaries (some featuring horror expert Kim Newman!), interviews, and even readings of some of M.R. James' original stories. Perhaps best of all, retellings of the first three stories in this collection are included, starring late icons John Hurt and Christopher Lee. While some of these features are carried over from the original DVD release, each has been upgraded to high definition where available. Broadcast in the dying hours of Christmas Eve, the BBC’s A Ghost Story for Christmasseries was a fixture of the seasonal schedules throughout the 1970s and spawned a long tradition of chilling tales, which terrified yuletide viewers for decades to come. Lawrence Gordon Clark introductions (2012, 33 mins): introductions to The Stalls of Barchester, A Warning to the Curious and Lost Hearts previously recorded for the BFI’s DVD release A Warning to the Curious showcases the BBC's Ghost Stories for Christmas slot at the top of its game. An overuse of a signature high-pitched electronic crescendo from avant-garde composer Gyorgi Ligerti's Atmospheres does come close to overstating the threat, but in the end never seriously detracts from what, even all these years after it was first screened, remains a gripping and genuinely chilling slice of supernatural storytelling. LOST HEARTS (1973)a b Rigby, Jonathan, "Traces of Uneasiness: Lawrence Gordon Clark and The Stalls of Barchester" in The M. R. James Collection, BFI 2012 (BFIVD965) This new Blu-ray release is a nicely presented, three-disc set, which collects four features, all based on stories by writer M.R. James, and released as part of ‘In Dreams are Monsters’, the two-and-a-half-month BFI UK-wide film and event season celebrating screen horror.