This one-off series consists of four half-hour episodes where we have Lee, sitting in an armchair, reading some scary ghost stories to us. Could this be a return to the '70s, when we were blessed with adaptations of such stories every Christmas Eve? I hope so, and I hope this series is popular enough for them to make more.
Okay, so this series is pretty cheaply done. All they had to do was pull in Lee and get him to read the stories. But, you have to remember, this isn't just anybody reading the tales - it's Christopher Lee, one of the five best horror actors EVER. Lee's narration is continually interesting, with his cultured voice often changing depending on the mood of the tale. Aside from Lee, we have a great spooky soundtrack of choir music, some eerie camera shots of trees, old houses, etc. when the story calls for it and amusing scenes of students - supposedly scared witless - listening to the master tell his tales.
THE STALLS OF BARCHESTER - out of all four stories, this is the one that gets most bogged down in academia and is the one in which the horror is almost hidden amongst the stuffy prose. However the actual story is a simple one of a haunted tree - for another see below - and various manifestations appearing to the unlucky archdeacon of Barchester. The ending is a nice and spooky one but altogether the tale doesn't have enough pacing or chills to make it stand out.
THE ASH TREE - this is a particularly chilling story from James. It starts off being a typical "witch's curse" type story, and then brings in a string of gruesome deaths - where the victims die black and swollen - and finishes with a plausible explanation for everything, yet with a hint of the supernatural still about it at the end. The final moments have to be some of the most grotesque that I've ever heard.
NUMBER 13 - a less impressive story, this one, but still quite good. James' story is a very suspenseful one with some great hair-raising moments (like the arm coming out of the door), but I found it spoilt by the conclusion which is lacking to say the least. James' ploy of ending stories with a final, spooky fact goes wrong here, and I was thinking "what?" when Lee was going on about the indecipherable note. Perhaps I missed something, in which case I'll read the actual story and find out. Once again Lee is fine as the narrator.
A WARNING TO THE CURIOUS - one of the classic ghost stories, so good that it has already been adapted for television once in the '70s. The story is excellent, packed with tension and plenty of scares, and I love the idea of an unstoppable ghostly presence coming after you. Lee's vocals are particularly good here, and he frequently extracts and conveys nicely all of the scares required. A great way to end what has been a highly enjoyable little series for ghost story fans such as myself.
Okay, so this series is pretty cheaply done. All they had to do was pull in Lee and get him to read the stories. But, you have to remember, this isn't just anybody reading the tales - it's Christopher Lee, one of the five best horror actors EVER. Lee's narration is continually interesting, with his cultured voice often changing depending on the mood of the tale. Aside from Lee, we have a great spooky soundtrack of choir music, some eerie camera shots of trees, old houses, etc. when the story calls for it and amusing scenes of students - supposedly scared witless - listening to the master tell his tales.
THE STALLS OF BARCHESTER - out of all four stories, this is the one that gets most bogged down in academia and is the one in which the horror is almost hidden amongst the stuffy prose. However the actual story is a simple one of a haunted tree - for another see below - and various manifestations appearing to the unlucky archdeacon of Barchester. The ending is a nice and spooky one but altogether the tale doesn't have enough pacing or chills to make it stand out.
THE ASH TREE - this is a particularly chilling story from James. It starts off being a typical "witch's curse" type story, and then brings in a string of gruesome deaths - where the victims die black and swollen - and finishes with a plausible explanation for everything, yet with a hint of the supernatural still about it at the end. The final moments have to be some of the most grotesque that I've ever heard.
NUMBER 13 - a less impressive story, this one, but still quite good. James' story is a very suspenseful one with some great hair-raising moments (like the arm coming out of the door), but I found it spoilt by the conclusion which is lacking to say the least. James' ploy of ending stories with a final, spooky fact goes wrong here, and I was thinking "what?" when Lee was going on about the indecipherable note. Perhaps I missed something, in which case I'll read the actual story and find out. Once again Lee is fine as the narrator.
A WARNING TO THE CURIOUS - one of the classic ghost stories, so good that it has already been adapted for television once in the '70s. The story is excellent, packed with tension and plenty of scares, and I love the idea of an unstoppable ghostly presence coming after you. Lee's vocals are particularly good here, and he frequently extracts and conveys nicely all of the scares required. A great way to end what has been a highly enjoyable little series for ghost story fans such as myself.