Martin's Close

No atmosphere, no scares, bland. That says it all.

This production stays with the style of the story, and without that there would be no production. M.R. James is amazing, his ghost stories can scare me out of the house in the middle of the night, but they never do. That's what I like about them. When I've read (or listened) to one of his ghost stories, I'm never left wanting more from the story. Ive been entertained & then I'm respectfully left to myself and my own thoughts. This production does just that. I'm influenced by the fact that I've read the story several times. I wasn't left wondering or wanting at the end of the episode. The story line was understood. The humor in this production was equal to that of the story. It worked out right, that rarely happens in the story to screen conversion. I find that commendable. A ghost story for Christmas... is not meant to stick around, making you sick and hollow with fear.... it's something else, and it requires balance. This production kept that balance, not an easy thing to do these days.

I watched this as I am a fan of M. R. James.

Boy I now know I should have not bothered. Yes this has a high score on here but it was awful.

I cannot think of one good thing that this had in it.

I have now only started to catch up with all the horror shows on television over the Christmas holidays as I work over them.

Got to now watch Susan Hill' s Ghost Story and A Christmas Carol with Guy Pearce.

See I told you I could not think of anything good to say about this.

I don't often post my views on IMDB because I know how difficult it is to make a halfway decent drama. This one is so strangely bad that I feel I have to flag it up. It's so dud that it has the feel of a student movie and apart from the performances of Peter Capaldi and Sara Crowe there's a distinctly amateurish air throughout (Simon Williams is good but wasted as the unnecessary modern commentator). Any courtroom drama should have plenty of coverage plus a few unique angles to give the editor (and the audience) a sporting chance of a stimulating ride. In this case there's far too much in close up - you could be watching Eastenders for goodness sake! The real curse is the script which has its own spoilers built-in, no surprises anywhere and, crucially for a ghost/horror story, none at the end. That such a remarkably bad production has Mark Gatiss's name on it is plain weird. There is so much brilliant drama on British TV (often written by Moffat & Gatiss) that this is definitely an oddball orphan. Over the years the BBC has made several half-hearted attempts at Christmas ghost stories. Even the better ones seem to lack conviction, 'going through the motions' almost. Come on BBC, it a great genre, give us a cracker for 2021!

John Martin is up before a Judge, and twelve good men and true, for the murder of Ann Clark, a poor woman and easy target.

Nicely made, very well acted, just a bit on the slow side. In the same style as the great stories from yesteryear, just lacking the depth and shock factor of say, The Signalman.

Peter Capaldi was of course a big draw, and does indeed have star quality, Wild Scolding I thought was terrific as the man on trial.

I did enjoy it, if I'm honest I would say it was just a little dull, they could have added some horror, or even a few minor scares.

Enjoyable though. 6/10