The Mezzotint

A genuinely creepy ghost story, which respectfully adapts the source material, while adding an extra well-conceived twist.

Rory Kinnear plays Edward Williams, an antiques expert with a stiff upper lip that just can't stop twitching. After receiving an engraving of a country house, one he initially dismisses as "indifferent", he soon realizes there's more here than meets the eye. The picture's appearance changes from one observation to the next. A moon shows up in one corner, a figure in the other, then the figure appears on all fours, creeping towards the house. The central conceit is cleverly employed, ratcheting up the tension to a moustache-biting climax.

The picture doesn't tell the whole story. It's delivered in pieces by Edward's academic colleagues, as well as village know-it-all Mrs. Ambigrail, played with just the right amount of gusto by Frances Barber. The performances complement the tone of the piece, ironically winking at conventions while delivering honest-to-good scares.

For those familiar with the original, this adaptation may surprise you still. There's an unwritten feeling from the short story that I hoped Gatiss would capture. And he manages this with a bit of clever plotting, tying together seemingly disparate threads to form a surprisingly spooky finish.

8/10.

I like Mark Gatiss but I'm never sure his writing is very good for the Christmas horror. This however may have changed my opinion. He took M R James' story and really brought it to life. The ending was genuinely scary and I finished watching feeling frightened!

Would watch again, and would recommend.

This is an amazing episode of a series with nine other episodes, three more of which are scheduled on my local PBS station. I wasn't expecting much, but started to watch and my attention was immediately captured. The story began slowly but built until realRealREAL dread was manifestly present. I'm not much for ghost and supernatural stories; when I do my daily programming of my DVD, I'm always amazed at the number of movies with those topics: malevolence, evil, and monsters-of-the-mind are much-too-much present. However, the subtlety and fabulous acting of all the cast lends a believability to the film. Then when I saw that it was written and directed by Mark Gattis, whose work on the Cumberbatch Sherlock makes it (arguably) the best Holmes EVER, I understood why it is soooooooooooooooo good. Watch it.

If you enjoyed The Tractate Middoth from a few years back, I'm pretty sure that you'll enjoy this one also. This is arguably the best of the modern episodes, it's certainly my favourite of the four.

It tells the intriguing story of Williams, a man keen to learn his family's past, and more interestingly, has come into the possession of a strange picture, The Mezzotint.

I've watched a lot of horrors and chillers this year, some good, some poor, most of them around the ninety minute mark, what impressed me about this, was how they managed to not be derailed by the short running time, considering it's only thirty minutes long, it packed a punch, atmospheric and sinister, with a chilling conclusion.

It looks great, it feels well made, some fine acting, Rory Kinnear was terrific, and played it straight, I did love seeing Frances Barber here, Mrs Ambrigail was super cooky.

Thoroughly enjoyable, 8/10.

Ghost stories for Christmas on the BBC, a tradition within a tradition of the festive ghost story, whilst also continuing the tradition of the BBC literary period piece adaptation.

'The Mezzotint' has wins and losses, pluses and negatives aplenty within such a short duration and knowing that the source material was one of the shorter short ghost stories by M. R. James and seeing that this was evidently filmed in midwinter there is the definite suggestion that the BBC is just barely keeping this tradition alive: in summation a very limited production once again just like the last few instalments in this tradition.

There are definitely points to complement: there is a sense of calm before the storm which gradually has an intrusive and unwelcome force batter it into fear and loathing; the mood of a small cabal of scholarly friends is pertly pointed out; and the internal worryings of the protagonist are well played out.

However there are several factors to set against these wins: a ghost story requires a mood and a tone to be established, this is done by authenticity and sincerity in setting out the environment of the tale. By this method the mundane must be mundane, consistent and settled, in order for the implicit horror to disjoint the audience.

'The Mezzotint' frequently fails this: with its knowing references and pointed dialogues, it's broadly written supporting characters, bizarre casting choices and it's incongruous insistence that interwar English-British scholarly gentleman would play rounds of golf in a cold February as a recreational pursuit.

The first five minutes are stodgy and clumsy and the climax offers up explicit monster frighteners rather than implicit personal horror through manifest fear.

Overall therefore I consider this to be a middling effort that would require considerable rewriting, different production and/or recasting to reconstitute it's authentic ambiance and thereby develop naturally to a satisfactory dread.

Some of the acting and directing is good and the sound design and mix are adequate and the cinematography is well lit both indoors and outdoors but there is nothing really exceptional offered in any of these areas.

An average 5/10 rating from me for a piece that had a superficial affinity to the ghost story but failed to deliver the guts by misplacing it's attachment to sincerity and an authentication in its setting forth of the tale and which then chose an explicit climax to end on.

I also wonder about the continuing existence of this BBC Christmas ghost story tradition when it offers up declining output and evidently diminishing productions.