Gaslight (1940)

I’ve been a fan of British film director Thorold Dickinson since watching his 1949 classic THE QUEEN OF SPADES (also reviewed on this site). I was therefore delighted to learn that the BFI were bringing out his British version of Patrick Hamilton’s play GASLIGHT. The better known American adaptation was directed by George Cukor, starred Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman and Joseph Cotton, and came out in 1944. MGM were so worried that Dickinson’s earlier film would affect the success of their own picture that they tried to prevent its release in the US, with a clause in the remake rights ordering that all copies of the original's negative be destroyed. Thankfully Dickinson himself made a ‘secret’ print which was subsequently donated to the BFI to make the version presented here.

The film opens with little old Alice Barlow being strangled by a shadowy figure who then proceeds to ransack her house. It’s the kind of scene that’s been reproduced many times since, but in 1940 it was undoubtedly quite horrifying. The killer is never found and Alice’s house is put up for sale. Years later the Mallens move in. Paul Mallen (Anton Walbrook) is in the process of convincing his wife Bella (Diana Wynyard) that she is losing her sanity. He hides personal objects and keeps any mail that comes for her. The top two floors of the house are never used although sometimes Bella hears someone walking around up there and at the same time the gas lamps in the rest of the house go dim.

A retired policeman called Rough (Frank Pettingell) suspects Paul of being Alice Barlow’s killer, who went by the name of Louis Bauer. It turns out that, while going through Paul’s things, Bella found an envelope addressed to Bauer. In order to protect his new identity Paul / Louie is trying to drive Bella insane. He has returned to the Barlow house in the hope of finding the rubies he killed Alice for in the first place.

For a film made in 1940, Thorold Dickinson’s GASLIGHT still holds up today as a well-made precursor of what would become know as the giallo. The unseen killer in black at the start, the violence of the murder, and the wide-eyed heroine who fears she may be going insane became staples of everything from the Hammer psycho thrillers of the 1960s to the hedonistic Italian gialli of Sergio Martino and others in the 1970s (most of them starring Edwige Fenech in one compromising position after another). It helps immensely that the BFI’s Blu-ray transfer of Dickinson’s film is so pristine, giving it a look that makes it almost impossible to believe that this film was made over seventy (that's SEVENTY) years ago.

The BFI’s dual format edition presents the film on both Blu-ray and DVD formats. There’s a booklet with essays on the film, and, as extras on the disc, five short films either directed or written by Dickinson.

GASLIGHT is a cracking piece of early 1940s British cinema. George Cukor’s 1944 version is impressive, but Thorold Dickinson’s precursor really is something very special indeed. Highly recommended for fans of top quality psychological thrillers from a bygone age.

The BFI will be releasing Thorold Dickinson's GASLIGHT as a Dual Format Blu-ray and DVD edition on its BFI Flipside label on 18th November 2013

Supernatural (1977)

Broadcast once in 1977, and then relegated to the BBC vaults to surface only in bootleg editions from time to time, the BFI has finally granted one of the most obscure of British horror anthology shows a DVD release.       SUPERNATURAL was conceived and written (except for one episode) by Robert Muller and ran for eight episodes. All of them are presented here over two DVDs. Each tale is set in the Victorian era, and centres around a gentlemen’s establishment called the Club of the Damned. The running theme of the series is that whenever a new individual wishes to gain membership of the club they have to tell a tale so terrifying that it will impress those present into letting them join. If they fail, the penalty is death. With the stakes set so high, it’s a wonder some of our storytellers even bother turning up considering the slightness of the tales they have to tell.

We begin with Ghost in Venice. Robert Hardy is actor Adrian Gall. An incident which took place in Venice on a previous visit still haunts him, and he is determined to get to the bottom of it. Resolution comes, but not quite how he expects. Ghost in Venice has some nice sets but the story’s a bit dull, takes ages to go nowhere, and the acting is of the ‘BBC pantomime for adults’ variety.

Things perk up a bit in all kinds of ways for the next story, a two-parter that goes by the respective episode titles of Countess Ilona and The Werewolf Reunion. In a remote province of Transylvania, the Countess Ilona (Billie Whitelaw) mourns the recent death of her husband by inviting four of her ex-lovers (Ian Hendry, John Fraser, Edward Hardwicke and Charles Kay) for an intimate party at the family castle. It turns out there may be some uncertainty as to who fathered her young son, who has a weird old lady who looks after him when she's not cackling and glancing meaningfully at the machetes that hang on his bedroom wall. 

It turns out that each of the Countess’ lovers has wronged her in the past, and that her husband is now her undead werewolf servant. He might just as well be invisible as well for all we get to see of him. By the end of the story nearly everyone's dead and the identity of the individual relating this tale to the Club of the Damned is thoroughly unsurprising.

Countess Ilona and its sequel make for a peculiar bit of British TV drama. The sets are lovely and some of the exterior shots are atmospheric, but at the same time there’s a ramshackle, and occasionally downright odd, feel to the film-making that will make this one either hard going or compulsive viewing, depending on your tastes. Actors fluff their lines but press on regardless. Ian Hendry doesn’t fare too badly despite obviously having had a fair number of breakfast beers before making his way onto the set. Edward Hardwicke bumps into a table during a soliloquy and obviously isn’t meant to, and the boom mike swings in and out of the frame enough times that it could form the basis of a drinking game. The shots of Billie Whitelaw walking her dog in the mist-wreathed forest are atmospheric but get repeated frequently and for no good reason and, in one especially bizarre transition device, one girl’s nipples fade to another’s eyes. All of this had me expecting to see Jess Franco’s name as director on this one, and if you’re a fan of his incoherent but occasionally fascinating style of film-making you may wish to give these episodes a look. 

Next up is Mr Nightingale. Jeremy Brett stars in a completely bonkers story as a young man who, while staying with a family in Hamburg, encounters his doppleganger in his bedroom one night. He also sees black seagulls, buildings going all wobbly, and has a tendency to pull funny faces at breakfast. Even coquettish Lesley-Anne Down can’t help him, but then she’s a bit mental too, getting very excited at the idea of asking Brett to burn down a ship moored in the harbour. There’s a lengthy discussion about omelettes close to the end that borders on farce, and the tale ends on a downbeat note that’s less effective for some of the oddness that has preceded it.

Things get a bit better on Disc 2. In Lady Sybil, Denholm Elliott and John Osbourne play the sons of Catherine Nesbitt, who is convinced a shadowy figure that might be her dead husband is trying to kill her. Viktoria is the only episode not to be written by Robert Muller (it’s by Sue Lake instead) and features Lewis Fiander as a closeted gay man whose wheelchair-bound wife dies. When he marries again it’s to Space 1999‘s Catherine Schell, but even she can’t prise him away from the attentions of strapping Norman Eshley. Meanwhile Fiander’s daughter has been given a doll so big she can hardly lift it and the scene is set for his first wife to get her revenge. Night of the Marionettes is a weird take on the genesis of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Writer Gordon Jackson, his unhappy wife Kathleen Byron, and their ethereal daughter Pauline Moran find themselves in an isolated Swiss inn where Sidney Bromley cackles at them and Vladyk Sheybal denies there’s anything strange going on despite the weird noises at night and the appearance of a man Sheybal claims does not exist. Halfway through the episode there’s a truly bizarre marionette show, and it soon turns out that Sheybal et al are manufacturing their ‘puppets’ using materials from the local graveyard. 

Last is Dorabella, a vampire tale with some of the best and most arresting imagery in the series. Jeremy Clyde and David Robb are two young chaps in search of adventure on the continent. What they find instead is a beautiful vampire lady (Ania Marson) and her father, both of whom are keen to continue their bloodline. Clyde falls under Dorabella’s spell and they all end up back at the family castle (actually a bit of scratchy stock footage from Hammer’s SCARS OF DRACULA). Robb tries to convince Clyde that Dorabella’s no good for him until it turns out that Clyde actually isn’t that suitable for her anyway, although there’s someone else close by who might be.

        When compared to the great British horror television programmes of the era SUPERNATURAL can’t measure up to quality stuff like GHOST STORIES FOR CHRISTMAS, BEASTS,  or DEAD OF NIGHT. The stories are slight and most of the time there’s very little atmosphere despite the sometimes lavish sets and costumes. I shouted ‘Get on with it’ far too many times at the TV for me to be able to recommend this series without reservations. If you remember it fondly from its initial run then by all means check it out. If you’ve never seen it before you’ll probably find yourself having to be quite forgiving. The BFI's transfer is as good as late 1970s British television can look, and the only extra is a booklet containing essays and a credit listing.

The BFI are releasing the BBC's SUPERNATURAL in a double disc DVD set on 18th November 2013

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 (1986)

Most people would agree that THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE is an all-time gruelling cult horror classic. Some would argue (quite reasonably) that its director Tobe Hooper hasn’t made anything comparable since. In the mid-1980s Hooper was offered a three picture deal by Cannon. Instead of running as fast as possible in the opposite direction (this is the company which, we must remember, made RUNAWAY TRAIN as well as BREAKDANCE 2 ELECTRIC BOOGALOO) he embraced his new financiers with gusto and set about creating three crazy movies, at least two of which turned out to be quite unique examples of the film-maker’s art (I’ve yet to watch INVADERS FROM MARS, but LIFEFORCE certainly qualifies as both unique and crazy).

But the question on everyone’s lips, and probably Hooper’s himself was, if he was to honour his contract and make a sequel to TEXAS CHAINSAW, how was he going to go about it? The resultant movie is probably the best anyone could have hoped for. Instead of grim and gruelling (although there’s certainly some of that in evidence) Hooper opted for hysterically over the top craziness, piling on the gags, encouraging his performers to overact, and setting half the film in an abandoned amusement park that wouldn’t be out of place in a gore-drenched episode of SCOOBY DOO.

The film didn’t sit well with everyone, unfortunately, and not least many fans of the original. Even they, however, couldn't have complained too much at the movie’s opening. A couple of unlikeable yuppies find more than they bargained for as their car crosses a bridge on which a pickup truck is lurking. The image of Leatherface, holding the mummified body of Edwin Neal’s hitchhiker character from part one, and not just standing but dancing, is a fantastic start to the film and a fine way to reintroduce such an iconic character. The two victims are taking part in a radio phone-in show at the time the mayhem begins and so DJ Stretch (Caroline Williams) ends up witnessing their murder over the airwaves. Along with Lefty Enright (Dennis Hopper) a man on a mission of vengeance for the murder of two of his relatives from the first film, Stretch gets drawn into the hideous and completely crackers world of the Sawyer family, who are now winning prizes for their chilli. “It’s the meat!” cackles Jim Siedow in one of the least understated performances in horror cinema. 

TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 is a crazy film, but it’s good crazy, and even though some of the acting is a bit too much over the top, their are fine turns from both Caroline Williams and the remarkable Bill Moseley as Chop Top, who delivers a truly disturbing performance that effectively steals the film. TCM 2 is one to be approached with caution, both by fans of the original and those new to the franchise. You may well love it, but the mixture of outrageous gore and even more outrageous silliness might not sit well with those expecting something far darker.

Once again, Arrow have pulled out all the stops in an attempt to produce the ultimate collector’s edition of a cult film. As well as a Tobe Hooper commentary from 2006 (moderated by David Gregory) there’s an ‘actor’s commentary’ as well. This one’s moderated by Michael Felsher and features Caroline Williams, Bill Moseley and Tom Savini having what sounds like a party in the recording studio. It Runs in the Family is a ninety minute documentary broken up into six parts and featuring interviews with the cast and crew. In Still Feeling The Buzz Stephen Thrower talks for a good half an hour about the making of the movie and its importance as a piece of popular culture. Cutting Moments gives us a short interview with Bob Elmore, who was the stuntman for Leatherface on the picture. There’s also an alternate opening title sequence, some deleted scenes and a trailer. A second disc is a treasure trove of Hooper bits and pieces. First off is THE HEISTERS, which is a whacky ten minute romp, followed by EGGSHELLS, Hooper’s early feature length movie about hippies. This one’s for the true Hooper obsessives only, but at least it’s there if you want it. Rounding out the second disc is an exhaustive trailer reel for Tobe Hooper’s film projects, some of which I had never heard of and will probably get round to seeing eventually, especially as one of them features what looks like a giant CGI crocodile.

Arrow Films will be releasing Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 on a three disc DVD and Blu-ray set on 11th November 2013

Schalcken the Painter (1979)

Leslie Megahey’s 1979 adaptation of J Sheridan LeFanu’s tale of ghostly horror finally makes it onto Blu-ray and DVD courtesy of the BFI Flipside series. Originally airing as part of the BBC TV arts series OMNIBUS, SCHALCKEN comes across like one of the BBC’s GHOST STORIES FOR CHRISTMAS made by someone with a serious interest in renaissance art. Which is pretty much exactly what it is. 

In seventeenth century Holland art student Godfried Schalcken (Jeremy Clyde) is under the tutelage of Gerrit Dou (Maurice Denham). He also happens to be in love with Dou’s niece Rose (Cheryl Kennedy) but lacks the funds to be able to make an honest woman of her. One night a strange, grey man called Vanderhausen calls to say he will be back the next night to discuss something of great importance with Dou. This turns out to be his desire to wed Rose, and he has a box of gold coins to prove he can support her. Dou signs the papers and, after Rose has expressed her disgust for the man, duly hands her over into his care. Time passes and one night Rose returns, still wearing her wedding dress and begging not to be left alone. But she is, for a moment. There’s a blood curdling scream and the girl vanishes. 

Years pass. Schalcken marries and Dou dies. After the funeral Schalcken finds himself drawn to the crypt where Rose appears to him, drawing him toward a bed in which something horrible is lurking, something which causes Schalcken to create one of his most memorable paintings.

I’ve read the LeFanu story on which this is  based a couple of times and I’m still not exactly sure what happens at the end. This adaptation doesn’t make things much clearer, but that’s not really the point of the piece. Leslie Megahey’s SCHALCKEN is much more about the nature of art, love and commerce, and how one’s attitude to these three things change as one gets older. A far more complex piece that many of the BBC’s other supernatural television programmes of the era, SCHALCKEN is also much better directed. Many of the shots seem to have been set up to emulate the Renaissance paintings that are the subject matter of the story, and the lighting often renders scenes reminiscent of Rembrandt. With its frank and fascinating attitudes to sex and art, SCHALCKEN THE PAINTER is very posh horror indeed, even if it does include a shot of a cat being helped to perform a happy dance by a couple of art students.

The BFI’s Blu-ray ensures that this 1979 BBC TV production looks as good as it possibly can. The image is never going to look as  smooth as modern day productions, but the transfer is perfectly adequate. The extras are interesting and well worth a look. First up is the 1962 short film THE PIT, a black and white adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum. It’s weird, atmospheric, and quite excellent, and it had me wondering how writer and director Edward Abraham went from this to writing the screenplay for Milton Subotsky’s THE MONSTER CLUB with his wife Valerie. The other short film on the disc is THE PLEDGE (1981). Digby Rumsey’s adaptation of a Lord Dunsany short is high on atmosphere with the best maggot-ridden corpse in a gibbet I’ve seen in a long time. Apparently it played as the support film to Bob Clark’s PORKY’S over here, which must have caused some head scratching for twenty minutes or so.

There’s also 39 minutes of interviews with SCHALCKEN director Leslie Megahey and DP John Hooper and a booklet with essays on all three films presented on the disc. If you like your horror high quality and highbrow this is the one to get.

The BFI is bringing out SCHALCKEN THE PAINTER on double disc Blu-ray and DVD on Monday 18th November 2013

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Remakes of classic horror and science fiction films tend on the whole to be pretty poor. There are, of course, some notable exceptions. Hammer revitalised the horror genre in the late 1950s with its new take on the gothic, and the 1980s gave us John Carpenter’s THE THING and David Cronenberg’s THE FLY, both of which did their own thing with the original source material, and did it superbly.

Another SF remake that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Cronenberg’s and Carpenter’s very fine films is Phil Kaufman’s 1978 remake / updating / reimagining of Don Siegel's 1957 INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. Kaufman’s movie is just about to be re-released on Blu-ray by Arrow Films in a handsome steelbook edition with a wealth of extras, both old and new, and most, if not all of these, have not been seen in previous UK editions of the film.

On a distant, dying planet (which has never looked better on the Blu-ray) alien spores collect and drift into space on ‘solar winds’. Landing in San Francisco they attach themselves to the local flora and merge with it to produce cute little pink flowers with pods. However, the intentions of these organisms is anything but friendly. Leave one on your lover’s bedside table overnight and the chances are he’ll be a changed man come the morning. When public health scientist Brooke Adams’ husband Art Hindle starts behaving oddly, she confides in colleague Donald Sutherland, who has also started to notice cases of strange behaviour as well. It turns out to be the fault of those pesky pods, that have a habit of turning huge and replicating whichever sleeping human they happen to have been placed next to in their bid to take over the planet.

Don Siegel’s 1957 original kept everything small town and features a prologue and epilogue designed to make audiences feel more comfortable when they left the cinema. Kaufman’s remake transplants the story to the big city and offers no such get out clause. It’s a sober, thoughtful, well-acted and extremely well written movie. Jack Finney’s source novel is excellent, and the original film managed to stick fairly closely to Finney's plot. For the remake, screenwriter W D Richter essentially took the core idea of the book and fashioned an entirely different storyline, reacting to social attitudes of the time. Phil Kaufman’s direction is frequently clever without being flashy - there are lots of dialogue scenes where we only see characters as silhouettes or reflections, and as the future of mankind looks increasingly bleak the movie itself gets literally darker and darker. The music and sound design is something special as well, and it’s hard not to imagine Howard Shore listening to what Denny Zeitlin was doing here and gaining inspiration for his subsequent work with David Cronenberg. In fact there’s quite a Cronenberg feel to the film overall - buildings and concourses are 1970s-sterile, and the people contained within act as if they’ve been infected with a numbing virus. Kaufman’s INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS is a classic, just as worthy of the name as the movie that preceded it, and deserving of a place in any fan’s collection of all-time great science fiction films.

Arrow’s Blu-ray offers a nice transfer of the film. Because of its late 1970s origins there’s a fair amount of grain, which does become a little excessive during some of the night shots, mainly because the image is (intentionally) so dark. 

Extras are plentiful. First of all, everything from the MGM 2007 Region 1 Collector’s Edition of the movie have been ported over, including Phil Kaufman’s commentary and four featurettes featuring interviews with Kaufman, writer WD Richter, star Donald Sutherland and others. Arrow’s Blu-ray also has three new featurettes. Discussing the Pod features critic Kim Newman in conversation with directors Ben Wheatley and Norman J Warren talking about various aspects of the film. Dissecting the Pod is a talking head piece from Phil Kaufman expert and lecturer  Annette Insdorf, and Writing the Pod is another similar featurette in which Jack Seabrook discusses the life and career of Jack Finney.

Once again Arrow Films are to be congratulated. This is the best and most extra-packed version of Phil Kaufman’s INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS to have ever been released. Grab it while you can.

Arrow Films will be releasing Phil Kaufman’s INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS in both steelbook and standard issue Blu-ray formats on 18th November 2013.

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Made in 1955, and his only directorial credit, Charles Laughton’s strange and heady mix of noir, horror and Christmas fable is finally getting a UK Region B Blu-ray release courtesy of Arrow Films. I had never seen NIGHT OF THE HUNTER before now, and when a film is considered an all-time classic I always find myself approaching such things with trepidation, just in case the film doesn’t live up to the expectations created by the reams of written material that have already been afforded it. I needn’t have worried. NIGHT OF THE HUNTER is definitely a unique film, but in all the right ways.

Psychotic preacher Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) marries widows for their money and then murders them, in the warped belief that he is helping God rid the world of women who turn men away from His path. He’s arrested for stealing a car, and ends up in the same prison cell as convicted murderer Ben Harper (Peter Graves). Harper has stolen $10000. Powell knows this but is unaware that only Harper’s two small children know where it’s hidden. Harper goes to the gallows and Powell leaves prison to pursue Harper’s widow Willa (Shelley Winters). The two of them marry but when Willa doesn’t live up to Powell’s expectations he kills her and dumps her body in a nearby lake. The children escape, closely pursued by Powell in search of the stolen money.

A critical and financial disaster on its original release (the accompanying documentary claims poor publicity and they may be right - certainly the movie poster made it look as if audiences should expect Laughton’s version of GONE WITH  THE WIND) NIGHT OF THE HUNTER has gone on to achieve classic status. A quick trawl of the myriad other reviews on the internet suggests it’s quite a Marmite film - people either love it or hate it. It’s certainly quite quirky - the film veers from arthouse German expressionism to scenes of almost knockabout comedy - but even if the plot doesn’t grab you (and there’s something wrong with you if it doesn’t), there are so many shots of sheer brilliance that you’ll be wanting to replay scenes just to revel in them again and again. The scene of the underwater corpse is breathtaking - similarly dreamlike, poetic, and yet filled with horror. Laughton’s use of light and shadow is extremely clever and is obviously the product of much careful thought. The performances are excellent - Mitchum not just trying out for his forthcoming role in J Lee Thompson’s CAPE FEAR here but actually bettering it. Winters is good as the lonely widow who undergoes Powell’s religious conversion, as is Lillian Gish as the flip-side of the psychotic religious fanaticism exhibited by Mitchum. As the Christian saviour of the piece, it’s only right that in the world of NIGHT OF THE HUNTER she should get  the last line.

Arrow’s new Blu-ray is a welcome release for a movie only otherwise available in this format from Criterion. It uses the same UCLA digital transfer as the Criterion Region A disc, and it also includes the two and a half hour plus documentary about the film entitled Charles Laughton Directs. Also carried over is an archival interview with cinematographer Stanley Cortez, and a trailer. There’s new writing on the film and a Graham Humphreys sleeve. The Criterion has more extras, but the Arrow disc is a lot cheaper. If you have a multi-region player the choice is up to you.

Arrow Films are releasing Charles Laughton's NIGHT OF THE HUNTER on Blu-ray on 28th October 2013

Classic Ghost Stories (1986)

The BBC has a long tradition of bringing the tales of M R James to the screen. Most famous, of course, are the dramatic adaptations in the GHOST STORIES FOR CHRISTMAS series, which is also available from the BFI. After that came to an end, and prior to its modern-day revival with A VIEW FROM A HILL and NUMBER 13, enthusiasts for television presentations of Mr James’ work had to make do with the somewhat simpler (and infinitely cheaper) approach of employing an actor to read stories straight to camera. Christopher Lee did the honours in 2000, while Robert Lloyd-Parry has scored considerable success in the last couple of years with his live recitations of famous James tales via his Nunkie theatre company. The disc under review here, however, collects five short story readings recorded by Robert Powell in 1986.

Seeing as James’ stories were written with the intention of being read aloud to an audience at Christmas time, this format actually works very well indeed. Powell’s style is midway between Lloyd-Parry’s rumpled academic and Christopher Lee’s Etonian authoritarian, and means that even if you've experienced the other two, you're depriving yourself of some prime ghost story telling if you miss these.

We’re in a cosy Victorian study. Powell alternates between wearing a schoolmaster’s gown and a velvet smoking jacket between the stories, and his splendid delivery and the surroundings make for a lovely way to spend a winter’s evening, either in 13 minute bites, or the whole 71 minutes in one go.

Five stories are presented. Some have a little bit of dramatic re-enactment to embellish Powell’s storytelling, but thankfully they aren’t too intrusive. In THE MEZZOTINT we get to see the picture change (always an audience pleaser) and in THE ASH TREE we get to see the spiders. Unfortunately they look like rather charming cuddly glove puppets compared with the weird screeching things of David Rudkin’s 1975 adaptation, but the bit where one "plops on the floor" is bizarrely unnerving. The other well known story is OH WHISTLE & I’LL COME TO YOU MY LAD, but it’s the other two stories in the series - WAILING WELL and THE ROSE GARDEN - that may prove of greater interest, simply because they haven’t received as much attention from stage and screen as the others. 

For extras we have three M R James readings by Michael Bryant from the SPINE CHILLERS TV series. SPINE CHILLERS was a conscious attempt to introduce children to quality horror stories back in 1980. It was produced by the same unit that made JACKANORY, the long running early afternoon television programme that consisted simply of a famous actor reading stories to screen for children. It was hugely popular, ran for years, and if you weren’t a child of the 1970s you won’t be able to appreciate just how marvellous it was. SPINE CHILLERS deserved huge kudos for trying to introduce kids to M R James and The Pan Book of Horror Stories (Michael Joseph’s THE YELLOW CAT from Pan No.3 was among the stories presented). On this disc we get THE MEZZOTINT, A SCHOOL STORY, and THE DIARY OF MR POINTER, adapted to make them a bit more child-friendly, but not patronisingly so. Needless to say, SPINE CHILLERS was axed after numerous complaints from parents, while it is hoped that their kids all went out and increased horror books sales - I know I certainly did. 

      A fine and worthwhile addition to the collection of any enthusiast for James adaptations, the disc will also be of interest to fans of Amicus anthology horror films, who get the opportunity to see stories read both by Robert ASYLUM Powell and Michael TORTURE GARDEN Bryant. Delicious, simple storytelling of the highest calibre.

CLASSIC GHOST STORIES is being released on Region 2 DVD on 28th October 2013. It’s also being made available as part of the BFI’s expanded GHOST STORIES FOR CHRISTMAS BOX SET, to be released on the same date. The set will contain all 12 episodes of GHOST STORIES FOR CHRISTMAS, three instalments of the Christopher Lee series, and all the above. Lovely