Count Magnus

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.

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.

I have read some of the poor reviews here and wonder if M. R. James's reputation can survive into the 21st century given our jaded sensibilities. He is a restrained writer in full command of the impression he registers in readers. He leads them quietly down a rationalist path, then suddenly springs the trap with a ghastly breach of ordinary reality on the unprepared reader and protagonist alike. And he does so as economically as possible, leaving the readers' imaginations to fill in the fullness of a horror that lurks in a dusty corner, behind a bolted door, beneath a sheet, a pillowcase, or in the depths of a crypt, a tunnel or a well. The lack of satisfying explanation adds to the frisson of terror. He never shows more than necessary or feeds the appetite for the explicit or the garish. I think Gattis's approach here mirrors James's. He conjures a foreign realm of which the self-satisfied and superior English rationalist is entirely dismissive. The ugly Englishman ignores local lore, religion, and customs. He thereby puts himself into the crosshairs of an evil he is entirely incapable of acknowledging much less combatting. And if we understand the full import of what he has awakened, we needn't stare it in the face to find it frightening. The looming shadow of an unholy figure, the flash of a half-consumed visage and wicked laughter from the wings is enough.

Over the past couple of years, I've caught up on a lot of these Christmas ghost stories that the BBC have been providing over the decades. Mark Gatiss has been the most recent custodian, and the last few years this has been his baby, but the MR James adaptations go all the way back to the 1970's. Unfortunately, whilst this one had lots of excellent build up, there was very little payoff.

Mr Wraxhall (Jason Watkins) heads to a Swedish estate to investigate the history of the de La Gardie family and meet their current Froken (MyAnna Buring). Conversations with the locals turn him on to Count Magnus de la Gardie, a cruel landowner, who is long dead and interred in a mausoleum on the estate. On investigation, he discovers that his sarcophagus is padlocked shut. Further enquiry leads him to learn that Count Magnus went on a 'dark pilgrimage' to Chorazin and a story about the unfortunate fate of two men who went poaching on his land at night.

Again, to a point it's all great. Jason Watkins is his usual brilliant self and the rest of the cast wonderfully aide building the tension. The visits to the mausoleum are scary with the padlocks either opening, or being open on each visit. But there's no real pay off to the decent build. There's one moment of genuine horror at the resolution of the flashback to the two men, but nothing to really pay off the actual story. I do believe in principle in things you don't see being scarier than the things you do, but I think there need to be hints leading you towards what something might look like. Here's I just feel like they didn't have the money to do anything, so it rather peters out to an underwhelming conclusion.

I didn't hate it, but last years "Mezzotint" was better realised.

This adaptation did not have the tone or atmosphere of an M. R. James ghost story. It's very disappointing from Mark Gatiss.

I like Jason Watkins as an actor and have been impressed with him in other things, but his performance here is mostly phoned in. I also thought he gave too much of a comedic performance. Whilst in the original story Mr Wraxall does sing to himself, I never thought the story was meant to be light-hearted.

There was a complete lack of suspense or danger due to the way this was written and directed, and it also did not evoke the appropriate feeling of the time it was set in. The characters seem like people playing dress up for fun.

There was one character invented - a mute black man. Why on earth? He looks so conically out of place. In fact he looks ridiculous, and it completely ruins any immersion, but there was barely any to begin with. His role added nothing to the story, but I suspect the BBC required it.

I would give this a miss, it really is a waste of time and not even remotely scary or eerie. Better to watch one of the original run of A Ghost Story for Christmas from the 1970s.