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andywilliams99
Reviews
The Enfield Haunting (2015)
Slow, should have been longer, yet excellent all the same!
Firstly The Enfield Haunting is based on a true story, and as with almost all true stories some artistic licence has been applied. Nevertheless the plot of this three part miniseries will have even the most hardened viewer checking under the bed or in the closet. The acting from the entire cast is top notch with the excellent Timothy Spall playing the lead role as the investigator Maurice Grosse. Almost all of the poltergeist activity portrayed in the series actually took place and is well documented, from flying marbles to moving objects, attacks on family members and even the spirit communicating through the daughter – recordings of which can still be heard today. The effects applied and the reactions they invoke are incredibly well constructed and add to the tension. If you can't handle stress or don't like biting your nails this is definitely not for you. Where things do go a little awry though are with the inclusion of some events which simply didn't happen (of which there are very few) and the exclusion of several events which actually did happen. I feel the series should have included some of those events and would have benefited from an additional episode. The plot though did place far too much emphasis on Maurice Grosse and his personal life – something which was never an integral part of the investigation. At the end of the day though this is an extremely good adaptation of real events, well acted, well filmed, and incredibly chilling!
World Without End (2012)
A difficult task cramming so much into such a short time
While not a die-hard Follet fan I was eager to view the TV adaptation of what I consider a thrilling and entertaining novel. Trying to pack a 1000+ page novel into an 8 episode mini series was always going to be tough, especially since the huge range of characters prevalent in Ken Follett novels requires such a diversity of scenes in order to bring them together and allow the story to flow seamlessly. From the start of the series it became apparent that the script writers felt the need to downplay many key characters, and in some cases remove them altogether. The result then is an almost immediate deviation from the original story - the central plot remains the same but loses it's impact as the process by which it is unveiled is encumbered by the need to re-write pivotal scenes having removed so many characters. In terms of visuals a great amount of effort appears to have gone into the sets and this along with some electronic wizardry results in some wonderful scenery which is a delight to watch. The same cannot be said though of some of the acting which at times felt painfully below par and forced, leaving me feeling quite unconvinced. With so much going on it often felt as though the story jumped rather jerkily from one plot line to the next and I felt you needed to have read the book to understand the correlation between events, and yet, to have read the book makes this adaptation feel rather lame and unconvincing. In the end then I imagine many who don't know the story will find this adaptation sufficient if not very good, whereas those who do know the story could feel quite let down and disappointed.