Another collection of vintage ghost stories for Christmas

If you’ve seen all of the BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas, and want more of the same, I’ve got good news for you.

Last year I put together a list of films, short films and TV episodes that seemed to me to capture something of the vibe of the Lawrence Gordon Clark era of BBC ghost stories for Christmas.

Since then, I’ve come across quite a few more examples.

I found them through:

• my own nosing about on YouTube
• social media posts and chats with people like Jamie Evans and Jon Dear
• on blogs like A Year in the Country
• mentioned in old film and TV guides actually printed in ink on yellowing paper
• in the extra features on Blu-ray discs

Some of the qualities I’m drawn to are, in brief:

• the textures of vintage media – film grain, video wobble
• conciseness – under and hour is best
• bleak, melancholy nostalgia
• a vaguely literary sensibility

You can hear me talk more about this on the latest episode of Joe Tindall’s Cinéclub podcast, if you’re a podcast person.

Now, onto the list.

Shades of Darkness: Afterward, 1983

A misty, melancholy adaptation of an Edith Wharton story. The premise is fascinating – you won’t realise you’ve seen the ghost until long afterward, goes the legend – but unfortunately sets up a disappointing ending. Still, it is fascinating to watch a period ghost story with a female protagonist, from a story by a female author.

The Mind Beyond: Stones, 1976

The Mind Beyond was a series of TV plays on supernatural themes produced by Irene Shubik for BBC 2’s Playhouse strand. They’re all interesting but this particular episode has stone circles, cursed tomes, and possessed children, putting it squarely in folk horror and hauntology territory. It has the usual pondering and bickering for the first 40 minutes or so and then accelerates towards a rather powerful ending.

The Lake, 1978

The short film Lindsey C. Vickers made before The Appointment. It’s about a young couple who go out to the countryside to see a famous ‘murder house’ and then find themselves being stalked, or haunted, by a mysterious presence. It’s available on the first of the BFI’s Short Sharp Shocks collections (recommended) and also as an extra on their disc of The Appointment.

Andrina, 1981

This one’s a bit special: it’s a ‘lost’ Bill Forsyth film, made between Gregory’s Girl and Local Hero. It’s more melancholy and bittersweet than the BBC ghost stories but shares their stillness and reliance on rural landscapes to create a sense of lonely unease. It’s about a lonely old man in Orkney who is blessed to meet a young woman who takes charge of his life and cares for him. I’d never heard of it until ‘Afterglow’ posted about it turning up, surprisingly, on YouTube.

Night Terrors: The Hospice, 1987

A 50-minute TV film that quite adequately interprets one of Robert Aickman’s best ‘strange stories’. It has to stretch the material a little, amping it up somewhat in the process, and the ending feels slightly less ambiguous than in the original text. But many of the key moments and images are there, and every bit as disturbing. Where the film benefits is in the performances by Jack Shepherd as Maybury, Alan Dobie as the sinister manager, and Jonathan Cecil as Maybury’s unsettling roommate Bannard. Cecil in particular seems to have been given the instruction I imagine actors love to hear: take it as far as you like, love; go as far over the top as you like. His chinless, rubbery British face, through a fish eye, looming too close to Maybury, and too close to us, is truly disturbing.

Loving Memory, 1970

Tony Scott’s directorial debut. Country folk keep to themselves and follow their own laws. When Ambrose and his nameless sister kill a young cyclist they don’t only hit and run – they take the corpse with them and make it part of the family. All three performances are excellent although it’s David Pugh as a blankly staring cadaver, surrounded by buzzing flies, who perhaps has the greatest challenge. It’s available on a BFI disc along with his brother Ridley Scott’s first short film. You can also rent it online via the BFI.

Haunted: The Ferryman, 1974

A one-hour TV film based on a story by Kingsley Amis and starring Jeremy Brett. A writer (an avatar of Amis himself) achieves great success with a novel about a haunted pub. Then, resenting the attention that comes with success, he runs away for a weekend in the country with his wife. They’re not quite happy, perhaps because his ego takes up too much space in the relationship, and there’s tension around their lack of children. They end up in a pub that has almost the same name as the one in his book. The manager has almost the same name as his pub manager. The barman has almost the same name as his barman. Has he been here before, or is there a crack in reality? It’s got that pleasing mix of stillness and shock that marks so many supernatural British TV productions of this era and Brett is magnetic, if unsubtle, in the lead role.

The Pledge, 1981

A macabre short by Digby Rumsey which marries shots of desolate moorland with close ups of maggots wriggling in the mouth of a corpse dangling from a gibbet. It’s not about the living dead but the dead dead – and what happens after death. It’s given an enormous lift by a propulsive theme tune by Michael Nyman. It’s an extra on the BFI disc of Schalcken the Painter and is also available on BFI Player.

I don’t know if I’ll have enough for another list next year but do feel free to make suggestions. I know about The Stone Tape and Schalcken the Painter, though.