A Ghost Story for Christmas premiered on BBC One in 1971, adapting stories by horror master M.R. James and others into short teleplays for the holidays. In 2005, the tradition was resurrected after a 27-year hiatus with an adaptation of James’s “A View from a Hill.” The tradition was celebrated on and off for a bit, until writer and director Mark Gatiss took over. After one installment in 2013 followed by a five-year hiatus (possibly down to Sherlock and Doctor Who duties), Gatiss brought the annual teleplay back. They’ve been running strong since 2018, with the next installment—an adaptation of Edith Nesbit’s “Man-Size in Marble”—premiering later this month.

Gatiss is lauded as a “master of the macabre” for good reason: he pens great horror, and he has researched the history of the craft in-depth (as seen in his A History of Horror and Horror Europa documentaries). With each new story, he preserves the feel of the source material while making it accessible to a modern audience. How? Read on and find out. And if you fancy watching these for yourself, all six teleplays are available with a BritBox subscription.

The Tractate Middoth: Silent Terror

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This 2013 TV movie stars Sacha Dhawan (later the Master in Doctor Who) as Garrett, a library employee who finds himself wrapped up in a literary puzzle box. As he tries to find the encoded book that will set an inheritance case right, he’s stalked by an eerie ghost of a man. But Garrett isn’t the ghost’s target—although he witnesses what happens to the man who is targeted.

A grotesque killing is played out before Garrett’s eyes in near-silence. The terrifying visuals absent of sound is somehow even more tense than complicated audio design would have been, drawing all our attention to the sights in front of us. The scene is also directly at odds with more modern tendencies toward loud jump-scares and musical stings.

The Dead Room: A Chilling Deconstruction

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For Gatiss’s second Ghost Story in 2018, he once again consults M.R. James—but only for inspiration. The Dead Room is an original story, the third ever in the series’s history, but it draws inspiration from James’s 1931 article “Ghosts, Treat Them Gently!” In this piece, the author lays out how he constructs his stories and (in his mind) what makes a good ghost story.

Simon Callow’s mellifluously-voiced horror story reader Aubrey Judd gives a similar talk to his young radio producer, lamenting the state of modern horror. But as he does, ghosts from his own past begin to emerge—funnily enough, following the “proper” storytelling format to the letter. For those unaccustomed to James’s writing, it’s an excellent method of meeting a modern viewer halfway… and also bringing the terror directly to our doorstep

Martin’s Close: The Reliable Narrator

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We’ve all heard of the “unreliable narrator”: an untrustworthy character who is also (for better or for worse) our eyes and ears. But what about the opposite? What about a narrator so trustworthy that it forces us to content with impossible claims? That’s what we get in 2020’s Martin’s Close, starring Peter Capaldi as a prosecutor whose entire case rests on accepting the existence of ghosts.

While the story itself is scary—a murdered girl coming back to haunt her murderer to madness—what makes this entry consistently eerie is Capaldi’s steely-eyed gravitas as he invokes paranormal activity in a court of law. This one’s more eerie than outright frightening, but it gives a consistent low-key chill throughout.

The Mezzotint: The Slow Burn

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Though penned in 1904, “The Mezzotint” has all the earmarks of analog horror. Museum curator Williams (played by Rory Kinner) finds himself saddles with a rather unimpressive engraving of a house at night. But every time someone looks at it, it’s changed: the moon moves across the sky, a skeletal figure appears, a child is taken from the house. Terrifyingly, the mezzotint’s slow-burn story seems to align with Williams’s own dig into his family’s murky history.

The mezzotint itself is the source of the horror, to the point that one of the most unsettling scenes takes place with the print mostly covered. A recent viewer stands in front of the covered art, nervously describing why it’s too horrifying to be displayed. Even unseen, the mezzotint brings fear—much as it does for our protagonist as he tries not to obsess over it throughout the story.

Count Magnus: A Change in Character

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2022’s Count Magnus follows Mr. Wraxhall, a travelogue writer who simply cannot stop asking questions. His curiosity while abroad in Sweden leads him to a historical figure known as Count Magnus, who is not well liked by the locals. Terrifying stories of an unholy pilgrimage pique Wraxhall’s interest even more, with devastating results.

Jason Watkins plays two very different Wraxhalls in Count Magnus. One is affable, noisy, and unsubtle, willing to bother anyone in earshot for a peek at the Count’s coffin. Upon having his curiosity sated, though, he is a changed man: terrified and regretful. While the horror of Count Magnus doesn’t hang together as well as it does in previous entries, the effect on Wraxhall shows just how deep the darkness goes.

Lot No. 249: Flipping the Script

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While many of the adaptations in A Ghost Story for Christmas hold up well with few to no changes, last year’s gets an extra boost from Gatiss. “Lot No. 249” was originally penned by Arthur Conan Doyle, and marks the modern era’s first full departure from the work of M.R. James. However, this story of university students being terrorized by a living mummy gets a shot of James-ish pacing… and a visit from a familiar character.

The biggest alteration Gatiss made was the ending. Originally, the perpetrator flees to Sudan; not so here, where the final moments are far more in line with the M.R. James tradition of closing on the terror itself. Gatiss also brings in a character simply known as “The Friend” to explain why this can’t be paranormal, right before it’s proven to be just that. Said “Friend” is highly logical, smokes a pipe, is considering a move to Baker Street, and wouldn’t mind room-sharing with a doctor. Besides being a treat for fans, Gatiss’s insertion of the Great Detective is an extra reminder of just how far beyond reality and logic this story will take us.

Remember, A Ghost Story for Christmas is available to watch with a BritBox subscription, and another is on the way!

Image Source: The EOFFTV Review

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