It may surprise modern folks, but the reason that A Christmas Carol did so well when first released by Charles Dickins was because it tapped into a grand tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas time. So it’s probably of no surprise that the BBCs decision to commission a run of ghost stories for Festive viewings in the 70s was less to do with providing an alternative to bawdy light-entertainment and more to do with maintaining Victorian values. So it’s educational horror, beyond the usual anatomy lessons.

This one of the batch was picked because it’s the first I could find and it starts with an almost context free slasher-flick cold open in a forest, with the artistic touches only public broadcasting can provide. It’s them skips to the 1930’s and we find out it’s set in a Norfolk sea-side town (which basically a 2020’s Norfolk sea-side town, but with less sewage).

We get to follow Mr Pazton (Peter Vaughan), an amateur archaeologist who’s turned up to find one of the three crowns of East Anglia that protect the coast from invasion. He goes clue hunting in a manner that’s shot like one of the many fine folk horrors of the era. There are minimal folk around for him to interact with, presumably it’s cheaper to film the local underdevelopment then get costumers and actors, so you better like landscapes and fishing village architecture.

After a lot of shots of a very nice steam train, and the introduction of Dr Black so that he can talk to someone with a RADA accent, we get to the all-important grave robbing. This is followed by the utterly unforeseeable supernatural repercussions that everyone had been warning Paxton about which, due to a series of long-range shots and low transmission resolution, means he’s stalked by a goth Mr Noseybonk.

Due to the minimal cast, the bulk of this is done without dialogue. On the one hand, when combined with the gorgeous expansive landscape, there is a lovely tension and mystery in the air, On the other, when combined with the XX long run time, it’s not always clear why things are happening and what does go down gets repetitive fast. The end result is brief moments of plot, interspersed with inoffensive postcard art.

I would love to say I loved this film, but the simple truth is that it’s going straight in the Trash for being too long, having too thin a plot, and for thinking that looking good and having fine actors doing refined roles will carry it through. It may well have given a delighted thrill to it’s 70s family audience, all sitting around the telly following turkey and a Queen’s Speech they actually believed in, but the audience is well past it now. Also, Tales Of The Unexpected did all it does but with better editing.

The Raggedyman

NB This was part of the annual genre Christmas film viewing I do each year; it’s just that I didn’t like it and those reviews always take longer to write because it’s hard to be enthuiastic, or creative, about saying why something didn’t work.