Count Magnus

Jason Watkins plays the buffoonish and ignorant travel writer Mr Wraxhall who is visiting a small village in Sweden.

Despite warnings, Wraxhall cannot help learning more about the legend of Count Magnus, a man with a notoriously bad reputation.

The overinqusitive Wraxhall dismisses the spooky tales told to him by the local innkeeper. He decides to break into Magnus's mausoleum to have a little look.

Mark Gatiss directs and adapts this MR James story. The BBC did not manage it to make this in the 1970s during their run of Christmas ghost stories.

However Gatiss is hemmed in by the budgetary limitations. It is atmospheric, there is some Scandinavian bleakness but it really did not deliver too much on the chills.

I did like who the narrator turned out to be.

Gatiss's trek through the MR James back catalogue for fresh Christmas scares continues apace in Count Magnus. In essence the whole thing is built around the undoing of the pompous Herr Wraxhall, here played with glorious panache by the brilliant Jason Watkins. It's a role made for him really and his increasing consternation is a thing of serious wonder. There's a nicely Hammeresque vibe to the foreign "otherness" of the Swedish locale and the gothic atmosphere and local character feel spectacularly camp. As with all of these Gatiss seasonal spooks the big shocks feel a little underdone and the end a little flat, but the journey and the casting is more than half the fun here. Long may the format continue!

Another disappointing M. R. James Christmas ghost story adaptation from Mark Gatiss, who is by now chalking up more misses than hits. This one's an adaptation of a rarer story, which is commendable in itself, but it completely misses the mark and turns half an hour into a very dull experience indeed. It's cheap-looking throughout, with producers simply raiding the BBC costume department and filming in a couple of rooms in a stately mansion, and the chills are diluted in favour of absolutely endless exposition. Yes, it's a boring talkathon with one good scare in a flashback and absolutely nothing else going on. There's no atmosphere or suspense, the actors are crying out for direction, and I wish Gatiss would call it a day now.

As a lover of the annual English Christmas ghost story tradition, I was hoping for a lot more than what was actually served up to us with this 2022 Christmas ghost story treat.

Zero atmosphere, poor casting, dull predictable cinematography which lacked subtly and imagination, the Director stomps his way through this tale with as much presence as the omnipresent smoke machine which loyally pumps away in the background throughout most of the shots in this poor visual effort of a film. Please Mr Gatiss allow someone else to take on the next Christmas ghost story installment, or unfortunately this wonderful christmas tradition will die a unremarkable death. M. R. James will never forgive you.

Englishman Mr Wraxhall travels to Scandinavia, to the home of the widow Froken de la Gardie, who's home was formerly owned by the cruel Count Magnus.

It was a quite enjoyable thirty minutes, half an hour of atmosphere and folklore, slightly lacking in scares maybe, but for me, this was one of the better episodes, it's a good one.

I liked the story, it has a definite appeal, just like The Mezzotint did, I liked the idea of a bumbling Englishman inquisitively poking around in matters that didn't concern him, his quiet curiosity ultimately proving costly. There's something particularly appealing about Scandinavian horror stories.

Jason Watkins was excellent as Wraxhall, he's such a talent, he had the right balance of inquisitive and bumbling, MyAnna Buring was great as The pale Widow, I believed that she'd been living a secluded life.

Perfectly narrated by Krister Henriksson.

Visually pretty good, I particularly liked the scenes inside the house, and at the mausoleum, it was a nice production.

Overall, pretty good, 7/10.