The Stone Tape by Nigel Kneale. An ancient evil is unleashed by an electronics research team working in a renovated Victorian mansion with much older origins, apparently haunted by a maid falling to her death. Jane Asher is the empathetic computer programmer desperate to get to the bottom of the curious nature of the haunting and Michael Bryant the misogynistic creep who dismisses her concerns as hysteria when her theories become inconvenient. Broadcast on the BBC on 25th December 1972.
The Fearless Vampire Killers directed by Roman Polanski. Equally silly and spooky, this massively atmospheric spoof horror includes a prolonged scene (one of my all time faves) set in a mirrored ballroom full of mouldering vampires from through the ages. Oh yeah.
This story baffled me for a long time but I think I was looking for meaning where there was none... it’s just more straightforward than I thought it should be. Or something. A young gentleman is accused of murdering the simple servant girl with whom he has been conducting a peculiar dalliance when his rich posh fiancée finds out and ditches him. The dead girl, Ann Clark, refuses to die quietly though, and plagues him right up to his execution. It’s an odd, slight story which was made into a Ghost Story for Christmas in 2019 featuring Peter Capaldi in a crazy wig as the prosecuting lawyer at young Squire Martin’s trial. This illustration was a five star hair tearer and I’m far from pleased with it, not least as the reanimated corpse of Ann Clark seems to have my face.
This was originally posted in 2020