Lock Your Door

LOCK YOUR DOOR is another filmed, narrated ghost story from one of the masters of the form, Algernon Blackwood. I saw it on a double-bill with THE REFORMATION OF ST. JULES, although that other story has the edge.

This is mild ghost fare with a traditional setting: a high-backed chair, a roaring fire, a well-dressed narrator with an incredibly interesting and lined faced. Blackwood's choice of story isn't quite as engaging here, and is rather a predictable effort although there are still a few choice chills. But watching this famous author taking it in his stride is somehow irresistible, especially if you're a fan of his writing. Blackwood was a top bloke and even these brief glimpses into his character are therefore worth something.

Famously Algernon Blackwood told some of his stories on live television, but no recordings of these programmes survive. Remarkably, however, two films, made for a tin-pot company, still exist of him doing the same thing in a similar set-up, also shot with multiple cameras. This one is a conventional ghost story about an old woman who learns from a vicar that she has spent the night in a haunted house. Considering Blackwood's reputation as a pioneer horror host, his performance is disappointing. He improvises the rambling story and makes no attempt at characterisation. He often looks at the wrong camera and so there is little intimacy with the viewer. The set and camera-work have no atmosphere. Presumably the two films weren't liked or more would have been made. But how extraordinary that there are records of Blackwood performing and that these are now on British TV. They're currently on the Talking Pictures channel.

Want to see the world's oldest man telling a rambling, incredibly non-scary story in his front room while determinedly not looking in the right camera? This is the one for you! It does have curiosity appeal - the guy was born in 1869!! That was like before the X-Factor started! But seriously, a very interesting guy but the format is so creaky and the material so mild and unthreatening, "interesting" is the most you can say about it.