The Mezzotint

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.

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.

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.

Ohhhh! Creepy, Creepy!!

I don't like horror, violence or gore, but I always make sure I watch the BBC's Christmas ghost stories.

They are atmosphere, creepy and just the antidote, to all the Christmas cheery tv! Lol This was excellent, as always. I only wish it had have been an hour, instead of 30 minutes.

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.