The Signalman/A Warning To The Curious

[mark meakin]

Originally Posted by cloud

OK so I've just watched Stigma and Ice House and what a huge disappointment! Stigma was atmospheric, it looked the part (despite being set in the modern day) and as a standalone it was a good episode in its own right. The problem was that I prefer chills over gore and that was all Stigma offered was a bit of blood and nudity.f the series.

Ice House though was pretty dire, maybe I need to revisit it again to pick up things I may have missed just now? But from this viewing I was left cold (no pun intended) because it had no scares, a lame plot and some uninspiring characters. Disappointing.

Nice to have the lot now as you mention Cloud but these lack the creepy atmosphere of the M.R James adaptions & and the casts are weak too.Lord knows how either got made in the first place.They should've remade Casting The Runes as a period piece as the 1979 ITV adaption was awful.

[cloud]

I did warn you, sir.

Which did you prefer out of the two and did Ice House make one bit of sense to you?

[mark meakin]

Originally Posted by cloud

I did warn you, sir.

Which did you prefer out of the two and did Ice House make one bit of sense to you?

The first had potential but was pretty dull & poorly acted (Needed Lawrence Gordon's Clarke's touch).I thought the flowers in the second were feeding off the corpse/s but they were incased in ice.It was like a nonsensical mixture of Day Of The Triffids & Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers.
Now CGI has improved considerably I'd love to see some more Lovecraft including a Dunwich Horror remake & an adaption of his epic 'Thing meets The Triffids' At The Mountains Of Madness.I believed Del Toro was planning a film at one stage of this story.I read it years ago & it was pretty good.

[eiren]

I love The Signalman and The Stone Tapes. Brilliant television.

Need to find decent DVDs of both. Hopefully the BBC will release them, as someone else said.

[mark meakin]

Originally Posted by eiren

I love The Signalman and The Stone Tapes. Brilliant television.

Need to find decent DVDs of both. Hopefully the BBC will release them, as someone else said.

The BFI versions of both are over £40.00 a piece on Amazon now !.I have their version of the excellent Stone Tape which has also been shown at least twice on BBC 4 & I recorded The Signalman off the channel.Thanks to Cloud I've now seen them all.Stalls Of Barchester remains one of my very favourites though all of them up Stigma & The Ice House are very good.The last two should never have got past the script stage.

[cloud]

I watched the 'Dead Of Night: Exorcism' episode last night and while my expectations were fairly high it turned out to be much better than I anticipated. Some of the sequences were really unnerving with several memorable moments, there was no tedium and the plot (especially the ending) was excellent. I've since read up on it and I understand 4 of the 7 episodes are now believed to be 'lost' so that is sad news. I'd like to see the other 2 episodes if they're ever transmitted though. Thanks Mark for sending me a copy.

I also watched Lost Hearts from the same disc. I already had that one but revisited anyway and it still holds up as a decent episide of Ghost Story For Xmas. It's not up there with the big 2 (A Warning To The Curious and The Signalman) or even the uber creepy Stalls Of Barchester, but it's definitely the best of the rest I think. It has some creepy looking ghosts, interesting characters and a strong plot. Very good.

And I wish BFI would reissue The Stone Tape, I never did get round to buying it. They're reissuing some of the Passolini films so maybe just maybe this will get another release.
By the way, Mark, one BFI disc you do need if you don't already have it is 'Ghostwatch', now that does deliver and has never been shown again since its initial transmission in Halloween '92.

Originally Posted by eiren

Need to find decent DVDs of both. Hopefully the BBC will release them, as someone else said.

That's 'cloud' to you.

[mark meakin]

I saw Ghostwatch on its original transmission but I was surprised so many people were fooled by it.I was going to get the BFI disc but it's bloody expensive now it's OOP.Glad you liked the DEAD OF NIGHT episode.Hopefully the BBC will screen the remaining episodes sometime .If they are indeed lost,they could add The Exorcism to a boxed set of the Christmas Ghost stories as an extra.A boxed set would sell well so I'm baffled what the problem releasing them is.They could be restored as well if they were willing to spend some money on them.

[cloud]

Were you as impressed by The Exorcism as I was?

I can understand why they were fooled, I mean for one (and I missed its initial showing in '92) I heard lots of stuff from people around my age who were really young at the time. And two, it knocked people off guard, they had (to my knowledge) never seen owt like that before (War Of The Worlds aside) so it's understandable.

You look at it now though and the acting is so bad! But anyway, it is still quite creepy I reckon. While in Mexico I kept promising English speaking relatives I'd show it them on Halloween but never got round to it in the end.

Well done BBC, you pulled off a master stroke there!

Oh and I'm amazed at that news about the DVD. I didn't know it was OOP.

[mark meakin]

Yes The Exorcism is very memorable.Good old Clive "Keeping Up Appearances"Swift once again appears in a classic BBC ghost story after his two Dr Black appearances in A Warning To The Curious & The Stalls Of Barchester.He was also in Nigel Kneale's BEASTS which was a rather patchy affair though I liked the creepy episode "Baby".I have the excellent Network release with the TV play Murrain as an extra.Ironically I thought this was better than most of The Beasts episodes.

[cloud]

I agree, Murrain was ironically the best of the bunch and on the strength of that episode then perhaps the rest of the series is more deserving of a DVD release than Beasts? Don't get me wrong, Beasts was pretty good in parts, but it wasn't exactly classic stuff.