A Ghost Story For Christmas - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

Critical reception differs between the films, but several, such as The Signalman are regarded as classic television ghost stories. Sarah Dempster, writing in The Guardian in 2005 noted that "Perhaps the most surprising aspect ... is how little its adaptations ... have dated. They may boast the odd signifier of cheap 1970s telly — outlandish regional vowels, inappropriate eyeliner, a surfeit of depressed oboes — but lurking within their hushed cloisters and glum expanses of deserted coastland is a timelessness at odds with virtually everything written, or broadcast, before or since.

The production values have received particular praise. Helen Wheatley writes that, "the series was shot on film on location, with much attention paid to the minutiae of period detail; as such it might be seen to visually prefigure the filmic stylishness and traditions of later literary adaptations such as Brideshead Revisited and The Jewel in the Crown." However, she notes that unlike those adaptations, the sinister tone of the period pieces could lend itself the label of a "feel bad" heritage television drama.

"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."

The Signalman is perhaps the most critically acclaimed. Simon Farquhar suggests that the film is the first evidence of Andrew Davies' gift as an adaptor of literary fiction: "despite an extremely arduous shoot, Davies and Clarke's fog-wreathed, flame-crackling masterpiece manages something the production team could never have imagined: it's better than the book." Dave Rolinson notes that while "the adaptation inevitably misses Dickens' nuanced and often unsettling prose ... it achieves comparably skilful effects through visual language and sound, heightening theme and supernatural mood ... The production heightens the story's crucial features of repetition and foreshadowing."

Sergio Angelini writes about A Warning to the Curious: "Of Clark's many adaptations of James' stories, this is perhaps the most varied in its use of landscape and the most visually arresting in its attempt to create an otherworldly atmosphere ... 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." He is less appreciative of The Ash Tree, noting that the literal adaptation of the story's ending loses the atmosphere of earlier instalments: "While the creatures are certainly grotesque and threatening, compared with some of the other adaptations of the series, The Ash Tree does lose some power through this lack of ambiguity. The result overall remains satisfyingly unsettling, however, thanks also to Petherbridge's restrained, psychologically acute performance.

The adaptations have been an influence on the work of writer Mark Gatiss. Interviewed in 2008, Gatiss recalled that Lost Hearts is his favourite adaptation because it is the one that frightened him as a child. He also noted, "I absolutely love The Treasure of Abbot Thomas. The moment when Michael Bryant has found the treasure and ... is obviously losing his wits. He just says, rationally, It is a thing of slime, I think. Darkness and slime .... There's also the fantastic scene where he thinks he's got away with it by putting the treasure back. The doctor is heading up the drive, and he can't quite see him in the sunlight. Then it pauses to that amazing crane shot ... Very spooky.

The critical reception to the two later instalments, Stigma and The Ice House, is decidedly critical, with most reviewers noting that switching to original stories instead of adaptations was "misjudged". David Kerekes writes that the latter is almost "totally forgotten". Wheatley has commented that they heralded a divergence from the stage-inspired horror of the 1940s and 50s to a more modern Gothic horror based in the present day, losing in the process the "aesthetic of restraint" evident in the original adaptations.

The 2005 BBC Four revival beginning with A View from a Hill was greeted warmly by Sarah Dempster, who noted "It is, in every respect, a vintage Ghost Story for Christmas production. There are the powdery academics hamstrung by extreme social awkwardness. There is the bumbling protagonist bemused by a particular aspect of modern life. There are stunning, panoramic shots of a specific area of the British landscape (here, a heavily autumnal Suffolk). There is the determined lack of celebrity pizzazz. There is tweed. And there is, crucially, a single moment of heart-stopping, corner-of-the-eye horror that suggests life, for one powdery academic at least, will never be the same again."