Ghostliness from BBC4
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darkling_talesTonight I finally got round to catching the last episode of The Crooked House, a series of three different ghost stories all connected to the same house in different periods of the building's history. The series was originally broadcast on BBC4 at Christmas time, but I only saw the first two episodes back then. Luckily, the Beeb have seen fit to show the whole series again this month, and I've been watching! I don't generally talk about films and TV on this community, but the stories belong very much to the 'literary' variety of supernatural fiction, focussing on ghosts rather than mindless gore, and there are definite nods to the antiquarian themes of M R James and his successors. So hopefully no-one will mind me sharing my thoughts on this series!(It's not like discussion of such things is banned or anything either, so do feel free to talk about such things yourselves if you want.)
The BBC has long had a tradition of the 'ghost story at Christmas', beginning in the 70s with a raft of adaptations of famous ghost stories, many of them written by M R James, with Lawrence Gordon-Clarke often directing. There was also the occasional original screenplay, like Stigmata or The Ice House. Over the past couple of years BBC4 has revived this tradition, but until now they've only shown James and Dickens adaptations. The Crooked House is entirely original, and Mark Gatiss (from the famous dark comedy series League Of Gentlemen) has a fine pedigree to live up to. Gatiss is definitely a safe pair of hands, and his love of ghost stories has seen him directing, adapting and acting in several creepy tales. He seems especially fond of Robert Aickman - he wrote the introduction to the Tartarus Press edition of his memoirs, and his short film of 'The Cicerones' was very good indeed. As it turns out, The Crooked House is a very decent attempt at the Christmas ghost story.
The first episode, 'The Wainscotting', begins with a rather sinister museum curator (Mark Gatiss himself) recounting a 'true' ghost story about a house that once stood nearby to Ben (Lee Ingleby), a young man with a troubled love life. We then proceed to the tale itself, which deals with Joseph Bloxon, a wealthy 18th-century banker responsible for a con similar to the infamous 'South Sea Bubble', which has cost many of his shareholders their life savings. In those days, when you were poor, you really knew it, and after a catalogue of further disasters one of his victims ends up on the gallows. But Bloxon doesn't care; he is too busy renovating his new house, Geap House. He encounters the same problems with builders that every modern British homeowner must face, but it's all worthwhile,and Bloxon is especially proud of the new wainscotting the carpenter has fitted to the walls of his room. But he is soon plagued by strange rustling, scratching sounds in the walls which he finds harder and harder to dismiss as mere evidence of a healthy rat population. When he finally uncovers the origin and secret of the wainscotting, things all come together in a most unsavoury way, but the vile, ambitious Bloxon isn't a man to heed supernatural warnings...
What first struck me about this episode was the lavish period setting. I'm not a historian, but it's clear that a lot of money and attention has been spent on recreating the atmosphere of dirty 18th-century taverns and imposing dark mansions. Of course, the only themes that really matter are those common to any period in history, including today: blind greed, hubris and their final come-uppance. 'The Wainscotting' is certainly a nice example of a vengeful ghost story, though I personally prefer my hauntings to be random and inexplicable rather than 'justified'. The implication that being good will protect you from supernatural harm robs a ghost story of much of its power, and this one is no exception. The sombre atmosphere is well maintained and the special effects in the final scene are convincing, though it's debatable whether any such graphic depictions of terror are advisable in a ghost story that's clearly in the Jamesian mould. It's all good tasteful stuff - possibly too tasteful - but it's not the most memorable yarn in the world.
The next episode, 'Something Old', jumps to the roaring 20s, where a crowd of bright young things gather at a fancy-dress party held in Geap House. The young heir Felix de Momery chooses the occasion to announce his marriage to Ruth, daughter of a self-made man ('in fish', to be precise.) Not everyone approves of this union, however: there is Felix's jealous ex Katherine and his mysteriously disapproving grandmother to contend with. In this atmosphere of luxurious unease, Ruth begins to fear that Felix may be cheating on her and repeatedly spots a woman dressed as a bride moving in and out of the crowd. By the time Felix's grandmother has coughed up the real reason she is opposed to the marriage - a curse placed on the family by her own sister - it looks like history has already started repeating itself in a horrific way.
In some ways, 'Something Old' is more successful than the first episode. It does have annoying moments - the characters are horribly cliched, for one thing. The blonde-haired bluff and totally useless aristocrat Felix, the (admittedly quite admirable) vamp Katherine and worst of all Felix's homosexual friend Billy, a lisping closet case dressed in a sailor suit, I kid you not. Needless to say he displays a galloping Brideshead crush on the young heir which contributes nothing at all to the plot. However, this episode is less predictable than the first and has rather a sharp twist at the end, even if it is lurid (and stuffy old Monty would have been horrified by the emphasis on sex, of course!) Again, the special effects are good, though the horrid apparition is once again shown in a little too much detail, the camera hovering on her face for just a few seconds too long. There's a lot of build-up for not much action, but it's a peppy little tale which will delight lovers of 20s fashion and high society. Meanwhile, the curator continues to weave his web around Ben in an increasingly creepy way. It reminded me a lot of the sort of ghost stories you find in Virago anthologies, with its emphasis on love, suffering and feeling as opposed to dusty manuscripts and draughty cathedrals.
The final episode, 'The Knocker', is easily the best of the bunch. Set in the present day, it deals with Ben himself. We learn that he is a teacher in a rough school and has just separated from his pregnant girlfriend because he couldn't face coping with a baby. The episode begins with the Curator presenting Ben with the only surviving remnant of Geap House - a sombre-looking lead door-knocker for the hero's new house. Ben duly installs it on his front door, only to be woken in the night by three loud knocks on the door. Ben answers the door and finds nobody there, but he does manage to lock himself out in the process. Using a spare key he lets himself back in, only to discover that his bland modern home has turned into a dark and lordly wainscotted Tudor mansion. A menacing figure in a ruff approaches Ben but he runs out of the door, and next time he opens it he discovers his own home once more. As the knockings continue, Ben witnesses the terrible secret of the house, which is home to a black magician and his two devotees: the lord and lady of the mansion. But what do they want from him?
The answer to this question is sinister indeed, and Gatiss pulls no punches with the plot. This time, the victims are utterly innocent and the ghostly entities thoroughly malign. Here, the relationship between Ben and the Curator becomes more than just a framing device, and the different strands of plot come together in a satisfying and surprising way. The directing is unfussy, with 'scary' background music kept to a minimum, and when a former denizen of Geap House pays a visit to Ben the apparition is one of the most horrible things I've seen in modern horror. That it appears in almost total darkness with just the barest flickers of light to illuminate its hideous approach is central to the horror. There is a slight touch of ham about it when the creature lets out a Vincent Price laugh, but that's a very minor flaw. I can't fault the atmosphere of pure doom that hangs over the whole story. Although it's clear that the tale is going to be nasty, the horror of the ending still surprised me. The actors are all fairly likeable too and Gatiss is at his serpentine best.
All in all I think 'The Knocker' is a must-see for any horror fan and out of all the episodes it's also the most faithful to Jamesian techniques. Anyway, the series doesn't seem to have much of an online presence, and I found no in-depth reviews on the internet, but there is an interview with Mark Gatiss here at Lastbroadcast.co.uk. I don't think it's available on DVD, so let's hope that BBC4 show it as a repeat! And of course, I hope the success of this series will be enough to ensure another run of original televised ghost stories this Christmas!
The BBC has long had a tradition of the 'ghost story at Christmas', beginning in the 70s with a raft of adaptations of famous ghost stories, many of them written by M R James, with Lawrence Gordon-Clarke often directing. There was also the occasional original screenplay, like Stigmata or The Ice House. Over the past couple of years BBC4 has revived this tradition, but until now they've only shown James and Dickens adaptations. The Crooked House is entirely original, and Mark Gatiss (from the famous dark comedy series League Of Gentlemen) has a fine pedigree to live up to. Gatiss is definitely a safe pair of hands, and his love of ghost stories has seen him directing, adapting and acting in several creepy tales. He seems especially fond of Robert Aickman - he wrote the introduction to the Tartarus Press edition of his memoirs, and his short film of 'The Cicerones' was very good indeed. As it turns out, The Crooked House is a very decent attempt at the Christmas ghost story.
The first episode, 'The Wainscotting', begins with a rather sinister museum curator (Mark Gatiss himself) recounting a 'true' ghost story about a house that once stood nearby to Ben (Lee Ingleby), a young man with a troubled love life. We then proceed to the tale itself, which deals with Joseph Bloxon, a wealthy 18th-century banker responsible for a con similar to the infamous 'South Sea Bubble', which has cost many of his shareholders their life savings. In those days, when you were poor, you really knew it, and after a catalogue of further disasters one of his victims ends up on the gallows. But Bloxon doesn't care; he is too busy renovating his new house, Geap House. He encounters the same problems with builders that every modern British homeowner must face, but it's all worthwhile,and Bloxon is especially proud of the new wainscotting the carpenter has fitted to the walls of his room. But he is soon plagued by strange rustling, scratching sounds in the walls which he finds harder and harder to dismiss as mere evidence of a healthy rat population. When he finally uncovers the origin and secret of the wainscotting, things all come together in a most unsavoury way, but the vile, ambitious Bloxon isn't a man to heed supernatural warnings...
What first struck me about this episode was the lavish period setting. I'm not a historian, but it's clear that a lot of money and attention has been spent on recreating the atmosphere of dirty 18th-century taverns and imposing dark mansions. Of course, the only themes that really matter are those common to any period in history, including today: blind greed, hubris and their final come-uppance. 'The Wainscotting' is certainly a nice example of a vengeful ghost story, though I personally prefer my hauntings to be random and inexplicable rather than 'justified'. The implication that being good will protect you from supernatural harm robs a ghost story of much of its power, and this one is no exception. The sombre atmosphere is well maintained and the special effects in the final scene are convincing, though it's debatable whether any such graphic depictions of terror are advisable in a ghost story that's clearly in the Jamesian mould. It's all good tasteful stuff - possibly too tasteful - but it's not the most memorable yarn in the world.
The next episode, 'Something Old', jumps to the roaring 20s, where a crowd of bright young things gather at a fancy-dress party held in Geap House. The young heir Felix de Momery chooses the occasion to announce his marriage to Ruth, daughter of a self-made man ('in fish', to be precise.) Not everyone approves of this union, however: there is Felix's jealous ex Katherine and his mysteriously disapproving grandmother to contend with. In this atmosphere of luxurious unease, Ruth begins to fear that Felix may be cheating on her and repeatedly spots a woman dressed as a bride moving in and out of the crowd. By the time Felix's grandmother has coughed up the real reason she is opposed to the marriage - a curse placed on the family by her own sister - it looks like history has already started repeating itself in a horrific way.
In some ways, 'Something Old' is more successful than the first episode. It does have annoying moments - the characters are horribly cliched, for one thing. The blonde-haired bluff and totally useless aristocrat Felix, the (admittedly quite admirable) vamp Katherine and worst of all Felix's homosexual friend Billy, a lisping closet case dressed in a sailor suit, I kid you not. Needless to say he displays a galloping Brideshead crush on the young heir which contributes nothing at all to the plot. However, this episode is less predictable than the first and has rather a sharp twist at the end, even if it is lurid (and stuffy old Monty would have been horrified by the emphasis on sex, of course!) Again, the special effects are good, though the horrid apparition is once again shown in a little too much detail, the camera hovering on her face for just a few seconds too long. There's a lot of build-up for not much action, but it's a peppy little tale which will delight lovers of 20s fashion and high society. Meanwhile, the curator continues to weave his web around Ben in an increasingly creepy way. It reminded me a lot of the sort of ghost stories you find in Virago anthologies, with its emphasis on love, suffering and feeling as opposed to dusty manuscripts and draughty cathedrals.
The final episode, 'The Knocker', is easily the best of the bunch. Set in the present day, it deals with Ben himself. We learn that he is a teacher in a rough school and has just separated from his pregnant girlfriend because he couldn't face coping with a baby. The episode begins with the Curator presenting Ben with the only surviving remnant of Geap House - a sombre-looking lead door-knocker for the hero's new house. Ben duly installs it on his front door, only to be woken in the night by three loud knocks on the door. Ben answers the door and finds nobody there, but he does manage to lock himself out in the process. Using a spare key he lets himself back in, only to discover that his bland modern home has turned into a dark and lordly wainscotted Tudor mansion. A menacing figure in a ruff approaches Ben but he runs out of the door, and next time he opens it he discovers his own home once more. As the knockings continue, Ben witnesses the terrible secret of the house, which is home to a black magician and his two devotees: the lord and lady of the mansion. But what do they want from him?
The answer to this question is sinister indeed, and Gatiss pulls no punches with the plot. This time, the victims are utterly innocent and the ghostly entities thoroughly malign. Here, the relationship between Ben and the Curator becomes more than just a framing device, and the different strands of plot come together in a satisfying and surprising way. The directing is unfussy, with 'scary' background music kept to a minimum, and when a former denizen of Geap House pays a visit to Ben the apparition is one of the most horrible things I've seen in modern horror. That it appears in almost total darkness with just the barest flickers of light to illuminate its hideous approach is central to the horror. There is a slight touch of ham about it when the creature lets out a Vincent Price laugh, but that's a very minor flaw. I can't fault the atmosphere of pure doom that hangs over the whole story. Although it's clear that the tale is going to be nasty, the horror of the ending still surprised me. The actors are all fairly likeable too and Gatiss is at his serpentine best.
All in all I think 'The Knocker' is a must-see for any horror fan and out of all the episodes it's also the most faithful to Jamesian techniques. Anyway, the series doesn't seem to have much of an online presence, and I found no in-depth reviews on the internet, but there is an interview with Mark Gatiss here at Lastbroadcast.co.uk. I don't think it's available on DVD, so let's hope that BBC4 show it as a repeat! And of course, I hope the success of this series will be enough to ensure another run of original televised ghost stories this Christmas!
