|
Post by Dame Bouncy Castle on Dec 3, 2019 21:32:35 GMT
Susan Hill’s Ghost Story will premiere on Channel 5 on Boxing Day (Thursday December 26th) at 9pm.
Susan Hill’s Ghost Story follows Adam Snow, an antique book dealer who finds himself haunted by the ghost of a young boy. As Adam investigates the strange occurrences, he suffers nightmares as he receives further, increasingly sinister, visits from the ghost, ultimately revealing a haunting secret from his own childhood.
The feature-length drama, which is based on Susan Hill’s novel The Small Hand and was adapted by Waking The Dead creator Barbara Machin, stars Douglas Henshall, Louise Lombard, Neve McIntosh, Adrian Rawlins, Cal MacAnich, Maryam Hamidi and Paul Barber.
|
|
|
Post by sootycat on Dec 5, 2019 12:40:56 GMT
This sounds good
|
|
|
Post by goodhelenstar on Dec 5, 2019 13:16:18 GMT
It does sound good. Susan Hill does properly creepy and Waking the Dead, when it first started and before it became a vehicle for Trevor Eve, was excellent. I like Douglas Henshall and will look forward to this.
|
|
|
Post by pandaeyes on Dec 5, 2019 14:43:32 GMT
I've put this on my Christmas viewing list. Very good writer, and the cast look excellent too.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2019 18:47:08 GMT
This story has a good chance. It is a well written take that, to my mind has a clear understanding of what it wants to be, and where it wants to take the various actors in the story. In the end, you understand what is happening, and why. You simply have to hope that it has a good screenwriter. I am really looking forward to it.
|
|
|
Post by bidiein on Dec 26, 2019 16:22:28 GMT
Looking forward to this!
|
|
|
Post by sleepyp on Dec 26, 2019 16:36:50 GMT
I'm a wimp, but I might give it a go..
|
|
|
Post by goodhelenstar on Dec 27, 2019 8:35:17 GMT
They didn't like this much over in the DS forum and the Telegraph review, which was the only one I could find, was also negative. I'm not put off by tv critics' reviews and will watch, but what did people here think?
|
|
|
Post by sootycat on Dec 27, 2019 12:13:54 GMT
Well I enjoyed it.
|
|
|
Post by marion on Dec 27, 2019 15:43:59 GMT
I realise I have only seen 30minutes and things may change, but isnt it rather odd that this chap is staying with some (rather unpleasant) people overnight and mentions a house, so they - Immediately suggest he buys this crumbling Jacobean pile, - The husband looks into whether his team could do the work, - They arrange a viewing the next day, All without our hero expressing any wish to sell his flat and live there and no mention of price. Frankly I would tell them to butt out. And I noticed when he gave the husband a bottle of single malt, he said next time try bringing brandy! What manners!
|
|
|
Post by marion on Dec 27, 2019 17:23:09 GMT
Well he was a vengeful little sod that Jamie, wasnt he? And did I miss something, because I didn't think Adam was actually intending to kill him. Jamie was a bully, they had a fight, Hugo could only save one of them. Still, I thought it was a lot better as a ghost story than the dreadful Martin's Close.
This did fall down quite badly for me in the Adam/Alice luaison. I felt they had zero chemistry, you wondered why they were bothering really as neither of them seemed remotely interested in the other. For quite a while I had her marked as a baddy, deliberately leading Adam to the house/dump.
|
|
|
Post by bidiein on Dec 27, 2019 23:17:37 GMT
Enjoyable if perhaps a little long. Some nice atmospheric touches though and the cast were good.
|
|
|
Post by geometryman on Dec 29, 2019 8:23:17 GMT
I thought it was poor. Although the basic idea stemming from events 40 years earlier was good, and you obviously have to suspend some disbelief for a ghost story, the idea that Adam would be willing and able to swap his flat for a vast decaying mansion was utterly ridiculous and ruined it for me.
|
|
|
Post by goodhelenstar on Dec 29, 2019 13:25:44 GMT
Well, that's a shame. I haven't watched yet but I will because I like Douglas Henshall, but I like a good scare and this sounds as if it isn't. Never mind.
|
|
|
Post by goodhelenstar on Jan 1, 2020 10:15:52 GMT
Finally got round to this last night – though I might give myself a New Year's Eve scare. Hmm. The music was probably the scariest part of it, and it seemed pretty derivative of both The Omen and The Shining, with Alice tumbling down the stairs and that very annoying toy car.
I think we were meant to assume that he was being pulled there by supernatural forces in the form of Denisa and Jamie. No one in their right mind would choose to invest in a tumbledown wreck of a house where there were so many ill omens before he even thought of buying it. Even though it was just down the road from his former lover!
He certainly was. Having him on the road didn't seem to fit with the story – if he could leave the house then why didn't he start his haunting much earlier? If it was really Jamie who was manipulating things then it would have made more sense for him to be the main ghost rather than his mum, though that may just have been the practicality of having a child centre stage. I believe he only spoke once.
I'm sure the novel is more fully fleshed out than this. None of the characters seemed credible, from Adam himself, who seemed to take everything in his stride and remained unphased throughout all the warning signs and the awful events that followed, to the supporting cast who all seemed rather wooden, especially Alice whose accent baffled me (but I note she's been working in the US, which might account for her oddly transatlantic accent). Adam seemed to have no memory of ever having been to the house before, yet in the flashback scenes it seemed they were regular visitors (was that his and Hugo's father that Denisa was having it off with in the greenhouse?). I can believe that Adam would have blocked out the trauma of childhood tragedy, but not to remember any the place at all doesn't seem likely.
Maybe it should have been in two parts, with more time to get to know the characters and time elapsing before Adam's momentous decision to up sticks and move there. Then he and Alice could have rekindled their relationship over time and we could have got to know Hugo and B a bit better, and understand why they made the extraordinary decision to live in the house themselves!
|
|