Hallowe'en at Television Heaven

It's spooky season, so it's time to review some classic chillers (because the rest of the year I don't watch monsters and ghosts and things, not at all).

Pop along to Television Heaven for new reviews on the ingenious horror spoof Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, the most terrifying part of which is that it's somehow now twenty years old; the Frankensteinian hammy horror of 1970s Doctor Who serial The Brain of Morbius; and, the Hammer movie Quatermass and the Pit (aka Five Million Years to Earth), featuring perhaps the very best version of the good Professor. 

Plus, Mark Turner-Box reviews the 1979 miniseries of Stephen King's Salem's Lot, while Malcolm Alexander examines the more recent horror series The Enfield Haunting.

Enjoy an array of Martians, monsters, vampires, ghosts, apemen and invasive broccoli.

REVIEW - Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

 This review contains some spoilers

Having relaunched the franchise again with Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan return with what might be described as an episode of the ongoing Ghostbusters series. In spite of some negative reviews, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire has done well enough that it's likely we'll get a run of films, coming in every few years, continuing the paranormal exterminators' adventures. Kenan has said that he and Reitman have storylines ready to go for future movies. This, then, is basically the first regular episode after the pilot.

On the whole, I preferred Frozen Empire to Afterlife, for several reasons. First and foremost, this film was simply a lot of fun, something which seems so low on people's priorities for movies these days. Reitman and Kenan stated in interviews that they were going for the feel of an episode of The Real Ghostbusters, magnified for the big screen, and they absolutely achieve that. It's a funny, busy, silly adventure that still finds time for character work, like all the best episodes of RGB.

It massively helps that this film features a new villain, instead of the retread of the first film we got with Afterlife. Of course, it's understandable that a relaunch of the original continuity after decades would bring back the classic Big Bad for a rematch, but Afterlife reused some of those elements so slavishly it verged on a remake. Frozen Empire, on the other hand, gives us a brand new monster to threaten New York and the world.

Still, this film ostensibly ties in with the original's fortieth anniversary (although you'd have expected them to release it in June for that), and as such it has plenty of characters, ghosts and settings included as references to the past. While the Oklahoma setting of Afterlife was a breath of fresh air, it feels right that we're back in New York for this one (although excursions to other cities, state and even countries was par for the course on RGB). As with Afterlife, the bulk of the original's surviving core cast return. However, while in the previous film this was little more than a bunch of glorified cameos, here the characters feel more integrated into the story.

Winston and “Dr. Ray” benefit the most from this approach. Winston, now a hugely successful business, is now the owner of the firehouse and seemingly the Ghostbusters organisation itself, financing research and development while the new team get on with the everyday business of busting. Ray, on the other hand, is where he belongs, running his spooky little shop, helping out with research where he can and tenuously entering the 21^st century with a new YouTube series on allegedly haunted artefacts. Ernie Hudson is a class act as always, wile Dan Aykroyd basically just is Ray at this point.

Less well served are Venkman and Janine, who come across as a little shoehorned in, but at least they have a reason to be there. Venkman gets to do his somewhat dodgy parapsychologist schtick in the service of the mission, while Janine finally gets to suit up, itself a much deserved reason to include her. Annie Potts seems to be having a great time, but Bill Murray comes across as running on autopilot. The final actor to return from the original is William Atherton as the hated Walter Peck, rather brilliantly now mayor of New York and still determined to shut the Ghostbusters down. He's great in the scenes he has, but he's a bit underused here. Still, it's a nice way to tie events back to the beginning without just repeating things.

It's the new cast who continue to impress the most. While it's very much an ensemble film, McKenna Grace still stands out as the star. Phoebe Spengler is now fifteen, becoming more frustrated and confrontational with her family, particularly when they acquiesce to Peck's demands and bench her until she comes of age. (Peck, like in the original, isn't wrong in his judgments, but he goes about enforcing them in a destructive way.) Phoebe gets a wonderful storyline to herself in which she bonds with Melody, the ghost of a girl who burned to death years before. Emily Alyn Lynn has a real presence as the ghost, whose friendship (and hints of romance) with Phoebe aligns with her increasing isolation and advances the plot.

Finn Wolfhard gives a solid performance as Trevor, now eighteen and struggling to prove himself as an adult and a Ghostbuster. Logan Kim is pitch perfect as Podcast, now working with Ray at the Occult Bookstore and managing his online activities. Kim has grown up a lot between films and steals a lot of his scenes with his infectious humour. A little underused is Celeste O'Connor as Lucky Domingo, who at least gets some great busting scenes interning for Winston's team.

Carrie Coon and Paul Rudd gives the film an emotional centre as Callie Spengler and Gary Grooberson, now an honorary Spengler, now a running the Ghostbusters street team as a couple. Rudd has some sweet moments as he slowly learns how to become a father to Phoebe, although he does get saddled with some awkward exposition to bring audience members up to speed with developments from the previous film.

Some of the best material goes to entirely new characters. Surprisingly essential to the story after a seemingly throwaway introduction is Kumail Nanjiani as Nadeem, a dropout looking for a quick buck who turns out to have a powerful secret hidden even from him. Nanjiani gets some of the funniest moments of the movie,carrying what could have been a ridiculous character by just running with it. I was a little dubious of James Acaster's casting, knowing him purely as a stand-up comedian rather than an actor, but his curt inventor character Dr. Lars Pinfield is a joy. Plus, it's good to have a Brit in there at the heart of the Ghostbusters team, heading up research and development for the new generation. Stealing his scene is Patton Oswalt as the enthusiastic occult historian Dr. Hubert Wartzki, although he is in the film for only a brief time. Still, he manages to make a long run of exposition highly entertaining.

When it comes to the various ghosts and goblins, Frozen Empire serves fans well. For celebratory purposes, Slimer is back, still hanging around the firehouse after Ghostbusters II and now hiding out in the attic, while Eleanor Twitty, the library ghost, has a brief cameo. The latter is pointless but fun and over in seconds, while Slimer actually has some impact on events, with Trevor having a fun little sideplot dealing with attempts to catch the critter. Of all the classic ghosts, it's Slimer who really had to be there, especially as he was absent from Afterlife. Surprisingly, given that this film follow up on the post-credits danger signs on the containment unit from the previous film and everything eventually breaks free, we don't get a ton of cameos from ghosts from the classic films. We do, however, have a lot of little Mini-Pufts running around; they're fun, but the joke's wearing thin with those guys. Time to melt them down.

There are plenty of new spooks, courtesy of Winston's new spectral research facility. Pukey, a revolting little spud, is no doubt included to be the new kids' favourite, while the simply but effectively realised Possessor makes for fun and threat as it jumps between various objects which it brings to life. Starting out with a major bust, in this case the thrilling car chase after the wonderfully realised Sewer Dragon, kicks the main body of the film off nicely, and it's satisfying that both puppetry and CGI are utilised together here.

The Big Bad for the film, the great demon Garraka, is a suitably threatening creation, an inhumanly thin, ghoulish creature with impressive horns. He's a striking image, and his power, to freeze people using their own fear, is enjoyably nasty. However, while I'm pleased that the film has considerable build-up to his eventual appearance, once he's there he's dispensed with far too quickly. It almost feels like we're missing an act, giving the film a rushed ending which badly affects its overall pacing.

Afterlife notoriously and controversially brought back the late Egon Spengler as a ghost, there to help and reconnect with his family. Here we have Melody, and while her motives are complex, she's another ghost who is very human in her thoughts and actions, rather than the monstrous manifestations we usually see. The majority of entities in these films have been godlike things far beyond humanity, virtually mindless creatures that never were human, or the ghosts of humans whose evil has made them monstrous in their afterlife. There's a lot more room for exploration here, to see more traditional ghosts who are intelligent, self-aware and altogether human, and the questions that raises for the Ghostbusters and their treatment of spirits. There could be some dramatic consequences there, along with the fact that, while they're praised as heroes at the end, the Ghostbusters and their new ally Nadeem are responsible for everything bad that happens in this film.

Altogether, Frozen Empire is good fun, and while it can't hold a candle to the original, it's a step up from Afterlife. Where it works best is in its original elements, and this is where the franchise needs to go next. While the old guard are better used here, this really should stand as the final handover to the new generation. The inclusion of the classic crew, the Spenglers and the new characters leaves this film (ghost)busting at the seams. The next film really needs to let the past go for good, focusing entirely on the modern team and more new ghosts for them to face. Let's really evoke The Real Ghostbusters and bring is some truly weird stuff.

Spoiler-y elements lifted straight from The Real Ghostbusters:

• The possessed Ecto-1 and a haunted stone lion both appear in the first RGB season.

• The possessed pizza brings to mind the pizza monster in the title sequence for the Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters iteration.

• Phoebe temporarily leaving her body is not unlike the times her father was discorporalised/forced from his body in RGB.

• Even the Mini-Pufts originated in The Return of Mr. Stay Puft, a comicbook collection from 1990.

Thirty Years of Ghostbusters II

Today is the thirtieth anniversary of the premier of Ghostbusters II. Also just gone is the 35^th anniversary of the original Ghostbusters, but I wrote about that film five years ago. Back then, I wrote about the different continuations of the franchise and the rumours of a third film. Five years on, a new film has been and gone, rebooting the franchise but failing to kick off its own sequels. However, 2016's Ghostbusters showed there was enough interest in the franchise to get a sequel to Ghostbusters II greenlit, which is expected to arrive next year. Dan Aykroyd, who has a habit of announcing imminent projects that exist only in his head, has also said he's working on the script for a prequel, set in the sixties when Ray, Egon and Peter meet in college. While there's a good chance this will never happen, I actually feel this is the best way to continue those characters. Recast them, tell the characters' stories without having to worry about increasingly aged (or dead) actors. Aykroyd has even talked about making it a TV series, which I think is honestly the best format.

But enough about the future, let's talk about the past. Everyone loves Ghostbusters, but where's the love for the sequel? While I'll be the first accept that it's not as good as the original (let's be fair, not much is), Ghostbusters II is an absolute cracker of a film. It's clearly influenced by the success of the animated spin-off The Real Ghostbusters, which made the franchise a huge hit with kids, and is a more family-friendly affair than the original. There are still a few grubby jokes in there (Egon's line about his epididymis is one that I didn't understand for years), but the overall tone is much less adult-oriented. This is no bad thing, and the film's whole style is a little smoother, more accessible than the original. It's less interesting than the grad humour of the first film, but it's one that can appeal to a broader audience, and it's a film that you could easily put on for the whole family to watch and enjoy. It doesn't quite go as far as making Slimer a character as he is in the cartoon, but he is inexplicably floating around both the firehouse and New York, although only Louis seems to ever see him.

On the other hand, while Aykroyd and Ramis tweaked their approach to the script to make it a little more kid-friendly, they don't miss the chance to have a little pop at their unintended new target audience. Ray and Winston make their entrance as children's entertainers, dancing to the theme song at a party full of “ungrateful little yuppie larvae.” (Which includes Jason Reitman, son of the film's director Ivan and now working on the upcoming sequel. There's something very funny about him telling the Ghostbusters that his dad says they're full of crap.) There's some clear resentment from the writers there, that they're having to write this sequel and make it more accessible to kids. None of the main players were keen to work on another Ghostbusters, (which is funny in hindsight considering that Aykroyd has spent the intervening years trying to make a third), but even working on half-enthusiasm they produce a great script.

It's true that the script essentially follows the same beats as the original, with the 'busters going from has-beens to world-savers via a couple of major set pieces and a ghostbusting montage. It's hard to disagree when critics complain that they weren't getting anything new, but there's also a sense of “if it ain't broke, don't fix it.” While there's some influence from RGB, the intervening five years have been very different and the 'busters have been sued out of business for almost destroying New York City. What's less feasible is that they're generally considered charlatans by the public (although the court scene sees some definite support). They might have trashed the city when they accidentally summoned up a giant marshmallow man, but it's pretty much impossible that anyone could deny that actually happened. There's a sense that the writers are snapping at the fickleness of the public. Ghostbusters II had a record-breaking opening weekend, only to crash completely when Batman was released the following week. (Perhaps, given the New Years setting, releasing the film in June was a mistake.)

While it's not quite up to the standards of the original, there are some elements that simply work better in the sequel. The characters have changed over the five years between, in believable ways. Egon is a researcher, Ray runs an occult bookshop, and Peter is a schlocky TV host, all roles they fit perfectly into. While we still have little indication of what Winston does when he's not in uniform, he gets a much better share of the lines and action than in the original (although he is unforgivably left out of the comeback bust in the courthouse). Most notably improved is the Peter-Dana relationship. Peter in particular is a far more likeable, more relatable character, still a bit of a manchild but far less of a jerk. While Murray's performance made Venkman the standout character of the first film, it's inarguable that the character is a selfish, unpleasant person, and it's hard to see why Dana falls for him. It's much more believable that between films she broke up with him and made a new life for herself, and that she'd grow close to this improved, less asshole-ish version.

Janine and Louis are stepped up to main characters, instead of recurring jokes. Annie Potts (who got spectacularly hot between films) gives a less abrasive but still brassy performance, and gets to play Janine without her fawning over Egon. Not everyone liked this development, but she and Louis work weirdly well, and it gives Louis the kick in the confidence pants that he needs. Plus, Rick Moranis absolutely rules the courtroom scenes. There's an amazing array of antagonists as well: Kurt Fuller as the oily mayor's aide, Hardemeyer; the great Harris Yulin as the ferocious judge Wexler; and of course, Peter MacNicol giving a career-great performance as Janosz Poha. Indeed, Janosz is perhaps the best addition to the set-up, something the original film lacked – a secondary villain with a link to the main threat. Janosz is at once pitiful and unsettling, and works as both comic relief and a growing threat. Perhaps the inclusion of the snubbed, nebbish white male using supernatural powers to try to get one over on the world influenced the script for 2016's Ghostbusters, with its own loser villain Rowan.

While there's no topping Slimer or Stay Puft, Ghostbusters II has some truly spectacular supernatural action. The battle with the Scolari brothers in the courthouse is the best single ghostbusting scene in the franchise, utilising some remarkable puppetry and video effects to create two horrible phantoms with real character. While, like the first film, much of the ghost action is put across in a pair of montages, the creatures and encounters are more elaborate and imaginative. Particularly memorable are the fur coat coming to life and attacking its wearer, and the Titanic finally coming into dock (“Well, better late than never.”) Vigo the Carpathian makes for an impressive villain, one with genuine personality, something that Gozer lacked, being more a force of nature than a character. Wilhelm von Homburg was reportedly very unhappy with being dubbed over, but the combination of his snarling face and Max von Sydow's booming voice are effective.

The use of rivers of slime must surely have been intended to appeal to the kids (and no doubt further merchandising of “Ectoplazm”), but the idea that the misery, cynicism and general shittiness of attitudes in New York would manifest physically is a stroke of genius. It's never completely clear what the link is between the slime and Vigo, but the intention seems to be that the ghost is simply taking advantage of a pre-existing phenomenon now that he is in New York, boosting his power and using it to his own ends. Indeed, the use of positively-charged slime against him would suggest that the ghost and the gloop aren't directly connected. However, while the slime is undoubtedly a kids' treat, Ghostbusters II manages to include some genuinely unsettling, even scary moments, perhaps able to get away with a little more due to its overall more family-friendly content. Janosz in his spectral nanny guise has to be the most upsetting visual of the franchise, although the garden of impaled heads comes a close second. Most memorable of all, though, is this film's giant monster: the Statue of Liberty herself, animated by ectoplasm and the voice of Jackie Wilson. While it may not be as out there as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, it's a brilliant and unforgettable visual.

Of course, there are some elements that make you wonder what they were thinking. The soundtrack is, charitably, not quite as good as the original's (Jackie Wilson not withstanding). I've a soft spot for Run DMC's new Ghostbusters theme, but accept that this is nostalgia talking, and it can't be considered a good track. There's a nice bit of Oingo Boingo on there too, but mostly, this is not a decent soundtrack, and the best performance by a musician on the film might be Bobby Brown's cameo as a doorman. While I love the idea of Peter as a psychic talkshow host, that scene is tonally out of step with the rest of the film. Chloe Webb gives an impressively disturbed performance as the date rape victim who's twisted her head up into thinking she was mind-wiped by an alien, but that's a seriously tasteless and, above all, unfunny joke. It's made all the more annoying by the fact that so many fans misunderstand the whole point of the scene, thinking that she was the one with the right date for the end of the world, when it is obvious that the other guest was indeed psychic and got the date right. The world was going to end on New Year's Eve that year, but the Ghostbusters stopped it. Talk about missing the joke.

In spite of a couple of missteps, Ghostbusters II gets so much right that I fail to understand so many fans' bad feeling towards it. It's a fun, arresting adventure with a refreshingly uncynical message: that, you know, being nice to each other actually is a good idea, and that treating people like crap has poor consequences. It has some great performances from a cast who, even if some of them didn't want to be there, were firing on all cylinders, combined with some wonderfully weird ideas brought to life with great effects. And how many films can pull off a dancing toaster?

Thirteen Ghosts

I'm experimenting with Vocal as a host for some of my material (might even make a few pennies on it). I've started with a look at some of the greatest ghosts of The Real Ghostbusters and Extreme Ghostbusters. Go take a look.

https://horror.media/the-thirteen-most-terrifying-ghosts-of-the-ghostbusters-cartoons

(I submitted it under the Geek heading but they decided to file it under Horror.)

REVIEW: Ghostbusters Annual 2018

I can't quite explain the childlike joy I feel when cracking open a Ghostbusters annual. A regular feature of my nineties Christmases, the tradition was resurrected in 2015 by IDW as a sideline to their ongoing Ghostbusters comic series. The 2015 and 2017 annuals (there wasn't a 2016 one, so it's not exactly annual) contained a mix of strips and stories, this year's release features a single, bumper length story that bridges the gap between Ghostbusters 101 and the upcoming multiverse crossover event Crossing Over. While it acts as a teaser for the latter, it makes for a nice little story in itself, in which the 'busters encounter the IDW universe version of Samhain, the pumpkin-headed spirit of Hallowe'en.

The script has some nice little snaps at the original RGB episode "When Hallowe'en Was Forever," like pointing out that Samhain isn't pronounced how it's spelled and that it really doesn't make sense for an ancient Irish spirit to have a pumpkin for a head when the things come from the Americas. But Erik Burnham knows that the episode is a fan favourite for a reason, and this is nothing more or less than a chance to see the core Ghostbusters battle one of the animated series' most memorable foes. I love the new semi-skeletal design for Samhain, and Shoening and Delgado once more form a fantastic artistic team peppering their story with fun little nods to the franchise. Finally, in order to defeat Samhain and a huge army of ghosts, Egon does the unfathomable and brings in 'busters from every universe possible. It's simply tremendous fun, and ends with a nice little teaser for Crossing Over, which promises to be ridiculous.

Xmas Marks the Spot

Every cartoon series has a Christmas special (well, most of them). They are, mostly, pretty terrible, churned out with little thought to what might make them different to all the others. A few stand out, though, and one has stuck with me from my earliest years. That most special of Christmas specials is “Xmas Marks the Spot,” the last episode of the first season of The Real Ghostbusters.

RGB has stood the test of time as my favourite animated series, and arguably my favourite children's programme (that depends on how you categorise Doctor Who). For the first couple of years – the first season and then the long run in syndication – RGB featured genuinely witty, well-written scripts, some surprisingly creepy moments and some of the most memorable monster designs in telefantasy. Yes, it became dumbed down as it went on further and ended as a shadow of its former self, but to begin with, it was a truly brilliant show.

“Xmas Marks the Spot” is not my favourite episode of the series (that's the baseball episode, “Night Game – every American show needs a baseball episode too), nor is it the most remarkable or unique (for my money, that has to be the truly surreal “Chicken, He Clucked.”) It is, however, one of the most memorable, most effective and cleverest episodes of the series, one that takes a ludicrous concept and runs with it for twenty ingenious minutes.

Written by chief scriptwriter J. Michael Straczynski – better known now as the creator of Babylon 5 – the RGB Christmas special takes a not uncommon route for a festive episode. Yes, it's a take on Charles Dickens's classic A Christmas Carol. Now, pop cultural takes on the classic Christmas novella would make for an article in itself. The Muppets have done it, Doctor Who has done it, even The Flintstones have done it. It doesn't matter. It's a more interesting, more potent way of doing a Christmas special than just having the characters give each other presents or going on a winter vacation. There's scope for the episode to actually be about something.

Peter Venkman (played by the original and best voice artist, Lorenzo Music) doesn't hate Christmas, but to him, it's just another day. Christmas is no fun when your wheeler-dealer dad is always out of town, and so, over the years Peter has managed to convince himself that he doesn't care about the holidays. He needs a lesson in Christmas spirit... fortunately, some Christmas spirits are available to teach him.

The episode has a more contrived set up than most. Usually, there's a spectral menace that needs dealing with in or around New York. This time, however, the 'busters have to abandon their faithful hearse Ecto 1 when they are stranded in a snowstorm, only to be whisked through time and space to 19^th century London. It all seems fairly unlikely, but it gets even more so when the 'busters immediately stumble upon the home of one Ebenezer Scrooge. (The episode end makes it clear that there are forces at work ensuring this all happens, so it isn't purely down to a cosmic coincidence.)

The four heroes are too late to stop the ghost of Jacob Marley from escaping back into the spirit world, but they are just in time to encounter three more spirits... “big, powerful,” and heading straight for Scrooge's place. It's the Ghostbusters to the rescue, storming in and immediately busting the three Ghosts of Christmas. It's one of those ideas that's just inspired. Of course, Scrooge isn't keen to give up his hard-earned cash to pay the Ghostbusters, but after some negotiation, they go on their way, and are swept back through the time slip.

Scrooge (guest voice Peter Renaday), inspired, sits down to write his memoir, A Christmas Humbug. It's the story of how he bested the Ghosts of Christmas (all by himself, of course). Meanwhile, 150 years later, the 'busters return to New York to find the book a perennial bestseller. So influential, in fact, that now no one celebrates Christmas at all, and people are incredible arseholes to each other all the time (just like in New York most of the time). “We've really done it this time,” says Ray, (the great Frank Welker) “we've just killed Christmas.” Or, as my good friend Jim put it, “They've gone and fucked Christmas royally in the A!” But then, he's always had a way with words.

From then (and this is after only about ten minutes runtime) the narrative takes two tracks. Peter, Ray and Winston go back to the time slip in an attempt to convince Scrooge of the error of his ways. This involves the three of them taking the place of the ghosts, with Peter dragging up as the very feminine Ghost of Christmas Past. As a nice nod to the blazing light of the ghost in the book, he's equipped with a set of blinding magnesium flares. What follows is an unforgettable sequence in which Venkman tries to convince Scrooge that he's flying through his past by running him in circles in a wheelchair with a ViewMaster on his face. The question of where he got ViewMaster slides of Scrooge's schoolhouse remains unanswered.

In the 20^th century, Egon resolves to enter the containment unit and rescue the three ghosts. Now, we'd had a glimpse into the inside of the unit in the Hallowe'en episode, “When Hallowe'en Was Forever,” but this is something else. Egon (Maurice LaMarche, who also voices Bob Cratchit and the Ghost of Christmas Present) constructs a sort of environmental suit that “demolecularises” him, while another lash-up opens a crack in the containment field. He has one hour to get in and out, or he'll be permanently spectral and trapped inside forever. And so he enters the otherworldly interior of the unit, a strange pocket dimension in which the ghosts are imprisoned after capture.

While these two epic threads are playing out, Janine (the faithful secretary, voiced by Laura Summer) is of course convinced that Christmas is nothing but humbug, but agrees to help out of her love for Egon. She is assisted, sort of, by Slimer (Frank Welker's other great role in the series), although he mostly gets himself into trouble and is nearly pulled into the containment unit. Now, one thing we never found out is who or what Slimer was the ghost of. Fan lore is that he's the ghost of John Belushi, but the backstory for the films suggests that he was summoned into existence by arcane rituals, as a being of pure appetite. You might say that there is more of gravy than of grave to this ghost.

In 1837, Winston (Arsenio Hall) tries his luck as the Ghost of Christmas Present, while Ray gets robed up as the Ghost of Christmas Future. In 1986, Egon manages to find the three Christmas Spirits, but there's trouble: the other ghosts have figured out what's going on. Cue every ghost captured in the run of the series so far, including the Sandman, the Winged Puma, Samhain the spirit of Hallowe'en, Big Ugly, the fat blue sleepy ghost... all coming after him at once. After a breakneck chase out of the unit, Egon escapes with the three ghosts in the nick of time.

In the end, of course, everything works out fine. The three Ghosts of Christmas are returned to their proper time to give Scrooge a slightly more convincing lesson, and Christmas is saved for futurity. While defending Christmas to the old miser, Peter has realised just how much he's missed by shutting himself off from it all, and resolves to appreciate it in the future. Subtle it isn't, but then it's Christmas. We don't want subtle, we want hammered home platitudes.

It's a tremendous episode packed with incident and Christmas spirit (literal and figurative). I watch it every year, sometimes several times. It's a classic.

“Merry Christmas to all – and to all, a good night!”

REVIEW: A Christmas Carol - Jack Thorne, The Old Vic

I adore A Christmas Carol. I read it pretty much every year. And so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to see the latest stage version at the The Old Vic in London, scripted by Jack Thorne and starring Rhys Ifans as Ebenezer Scrooge. It was, in a word, wonderful.

The stage in central to the theatre, constructed from cash boxes beneath Victorian street lanterns. The stage is simplistic but ingeniously operated, the world of the play made up from doorframes, sound effects and faux snow. The frontmost rows of the audience are practically on the stage, and by the boisterous, glorious finale, Scrooge is running amongst the aisles, the entire theatre brought into the production.

The best adaptations of classical material are frequently those that take the greatest liberties with the source text, and this newest version of A Christmas Carol is a good example. While it is true to the spirit of the novel (pardon the pun), it has been heavily rewritten, with only the best remembered and most essential lines retained. The events that are visited through Scrooge's past, present and future vary significantly from what we see in the novel, although there are also elements retained that are usually forgotten. The strength of the production lies not only in the new script, but in how vividly and powerfully it is brought to life.

Ifans is astonishingly good as Scrooge, taking his place as one of the very best. His Scrooge is hairy, unkempt, clad in threadbare robes and physically aged, but full of life. It is a very bitter sort of life, though, making him the loudest, coursest, most intimidating version of Scrooge I've seen, shouting, bullying and spitting his way through the performance. (Really, I felt for those people in the front row.) As he is taken back through time, we see him as a young boy (played well by Jamie Cameron), but soon Ifans steps into the role, straightening up and taking on a youthful vigour as Scrooge relives the essential moments of his life.

Most adaptations give greater significance to Belle than the novel does, making her a major factor in his callous outlook, rather than merely a victim of it, and this version in particular follows her further in her life than is usual. In this version, Belle is the daughter of Fezziwig, streamlining the backstory somewhat, and is charmingly played by Erin Doherty. A major change from the usual storyline is the attention given to Scrooge's home life as a boy and young man, giving him a hypocritical hatred of his penny-pinching father (Alex Gaumond, who also portrays a desolate and distraught Marley). These scenes also give a lot of time to Scrooge's sister, Little Fan, later mother of his nephew Fred, who is portrayed with great spirit and sympathy by Melissa Allan.

Almost every member of the cast takes at least two roles, most of them taking on duties as group narrators, and several of them taking on two major roles in the story. Particularly good are John Dagliesh as a likeable, open-faced Bob Cratchit, Alastair Parker as an especially ebullient Fezziwig, and Golda Rosheuvel as Mrs. Fezziwig and the Ghost of Christmas Present.

It's always fascinating to see how the three Ghosts of Christmas will be portrayed, especially on stage when special effects and visual trickery are limited. Here, unusually, we have an all-female role call of festive phantoms (Marley notwithstanding), who appear as part of the same class of spirit, rather than the strange assembly we have described in the novel. Initially, the Ghost of Christmas Future is visualised by the entire extended cast, veiled in black, swarming Scrooge, before a single character from his past is brought back to stand for the ghost in one of the most effective changes to the story.

Tiny Tim is played by four different children, each one taking turns of different performances. When I saw it, Grace Fincham played the youngest Cratchit. She gave an absolutely beautiful performance that put me to tears. Even as Tim's fate - far more immediately portrayed here than usual - affects Scrooge terribly, he remains defiant in the face of the ghosts for a long time. Perhaps the most effective change is to Scrooge's funeral, where, instead of being empty, sees people from his life attend to read eulogies and declare that they do indeed hold love for him, in spite of his attempts to push them away. I'm tempted to say it improves upon the original in this regard, making a powerful and positive effect on Scrooge's attitude rather than frightening him with something negative. When it comes to the climactic finale, Scrooge really is a changed man, Ifans taking the aggressive energy from before and channelling it into a joyful, exuberent, Doctorish performance. The entire audience is invited to his "invasion" of the Cratchits' home, before everything quietens down for the final, beautiful moments. 

My All-Time Top Five Christmas Movies

In reply to my friend @kayjoon 's blog post, here are my top five Chrimbly films. His list is very good, and his choice of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is fine and good, but he shall forever disagreed with for not putting the Muppets at the very top.

5. Gremlins (1984)

Perhaps the grimmest, certainly the nastiest Christmas movie that isn't an out-and-out horror, although it comes close. It came out in the middle of summer, something that went down poorly with writer Chris Columbus and director Joe Dante, but it is undoubtedly a Christmas film, being not only set at Christmas but very much about it. People have argued for years about who or what the gremlins are meant to represent, but for me it seems clear that they stand for the crass commercialism of the modern Christmas and the potential damage it can do to a true family Christmas.

Spielberg got the film made, and his influence toned down the horror elements and made it into a just-about-family-friendly movie, albeit one that helped reconfigure the film ratings system (along with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Spielberg used it to campaign for a new rating between PG and R, which led to the adoption of PG-13 in the US and the UK rating 15 in its stead). The original script had cute little Gizmo turn into the murderous monster; instead he produces already pretty nasty offspring that become worse after their transformation. The film loses some of its point because of this, but it's unlikely it would have been the same hit if the one cutesy and marketable character became a demonic killer. Still, they did manage to keep in Phoebe Cates's horrible soliloquy about her character's tragic history with Christmas, which Dante fought with Spielberg to keep. It's the indicative moment that combines the joy and misery of family to blackly comic effect.

4. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

OK, this is as much a Hallowe'en film as a Christmas one, and was released as such, but it provides the perfect intro to the Christmas' movie marathon. Both festivals are the modern evolutions of ancient pagan festivals that ushered in the dangerous winter months, so they go together, and ghosts always work well at Christmas (see below). Nightmare might also be taken as an attack on the commercialism of Christmas, on how it doesn't matter if you get the look and trappings right, if the spirit isn't there (Christmas spirit, not Jack Skellington).

Although one of the most Tim Burton-esque films, people tend to forget it was Henry Sellick who directed it, and the stop motion style is absolutely perfect for the childishly spooky setting. The songs are pretty brilliant too  - the opening song "This is Hallowe'en" is clearly the best, but "Oogie Boogie's Song" works very well too, and is eminently coverable. Nightmare was perfectly designed to appeal to nine-year-old me, with just the right level of monsters and ickiness. Christmas isn't Christmas unless you feel a bit sick once it's over.

3. Trading Places (1983)

The eighties really were a good time for darkly comic Christmas movies. Basically a modern take on the 19th century novel The Prince and the Pauper - something so much part of American literary culture that even Mickey Mouse starred in a version, as with A Christmas Carol (see below). Trading Places has Dan Aykroyd's up-and-coming Harvard graduate Louis Winthorpe cast out of his home and job, while Eddie Murphy's street-living beggar Billy Ray Valentine is given his old position, all as part of a social experiment by the money-grabbing Duke Brothers. Aykroyd and Murphy are great, but the film belongs to the side cast, with Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche the stand-outs as money-grabbing modern Scrooges the Dukes. Jamie Lee Curtis plays her most likeable character in Ophelia, Winthorpe's unlikely love interest, and Denholm Elliott is perfect as manservant Coleman. Often overlooked, though, is Kristen Holby, who is utterly spot-on as Winthorpe's snooty, icy fiance Penelope.

Winthorpe's descent into social hell culminates in his taking a desperate position as the most wretched Santa Claus ever committed to film, very nearly ending in violence, suicide and stolen smoked salmon. It's on the edge of being a Christmas film, general social commentary, particularly racial stereotyping and privilege being its main concerns, but setting it in the run up to Christmas and New Year makes the cruelty all that stronger. Also, it's got more tits in than the rest of this list.

2. Scrooged (1988)

Frank Cross is Bill Murray's second greatest role (the first being, of course, famous parapsychologist and date rapist Dr. Peter Venkman, and no, Ghostbusters II is not a Christmas film, it is a New Year's film). The second greatest screen version of A Christmas Carol, Scrooged is brave enough to give a genuinely modern take on the story, albeit one that is now overdue for another treatment. You could easily remake Scrooged with updated settings every twenty years or so. Making the Scrooge analogue a heartless TV exec was a stroke of genius. Murray and director Richard Donner did not get along at all well, but this tension reflects well in the production and there's even a hint that Murray carried some of Donner into his performance.

The subject of Frank's callous disregard for human life is low-level team member Bobcat Goldthwait (whatever happened to Bobcat?); Scrooge's nephew becomes Frank's brother James, played by Bill's real-life brother John Murray; John Glover makes a memorably fake and vacuous "LA slimeball" after Frank's position. Karen Allen has her best role as do-gooder Claire, the Belle figure of this Scrooge's life, albeit one who isn't so lost to him as in the original. Most affecting, of course, are the always brilliant Alfre Woodard as the Cratchit figure Grace, and her mute son, played silently Raphael Harris in the potential future and almost silently in the present by Nicholas Philips. If you're not buoyed up when he says, "God bless us, everyone," you have a heart of stone.

Then there are the ghosts. With even the deliberately obscure Ghost of Christmas Past often portrayed in similar ways on screen, and the Ghosts of Present and Future being straightforward, we often know what we're getting with the ghosts. Not with Scrooged, which from John Forsythe as the ghost of his boss (Lew Hayward, the man who invented the miniseries!) take new, imaginative, hilarious and terrifying forms. David Johansen of the New York Dolls is the revoltingly unlikely Ghost of Christmas Past, Carol Kane is truly brilliant as the gleefully violent Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Future is the most terrifying ever put to screen (with the exception of Mickey's Christmas Carol). For all the cynicism on display, the story moves to a rousing and moving conclusion, and there should not be a dry eye in the house. Thanks to Scrooged, "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" will forever be a Christmas song, and we'll always know the name of the ship that took them all to Gilligan's Island.

1. The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

Hands down, the greatest Christmas movie, the greatest screen version of A Christmas Carol, and the only film on this list which would be on my overall top five. Although made by Jim Henson Productions, this was made after Jim Henson's death by his son Brian and from the initial idea by Bill Haber, who saw the original novel as the greatest story ever and one ripe for adaptation. As with previous Muppet movies, the decision to make it as a mixture of human actors and puppets must have led to all sorts of logistical problems, but works brilliantly. The greatest respect has to go to Michael Caine, who gives a career-best performance as Scrooge, acting with Muppets without blinking an eye and absolutely selling the character's transformation. Casting Muppets as legendary characters, such as Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit, could have failed badly, yet somehow fits perfectly. It's best not to think too much about a world where frogs and pigs sit down to eat roast goose, and vegetables can sing.

Surprisingly, this adaptation is among the most faithful to the original text, not least because Charles Dickens is a character, thereby allowing his voice as narrator a part in the film. The fact that Dickens is played by Gonzo the Great is neither here nor there. The new Muppets created to be the ghosts are remarkable, not least the ethereal spirit that appears as the Ghost of Christmas Past, realised by filming a puppet in a tank of oil/water mixture and superimposing the footage, translucent, onto the film. The greatest idea, however, has to be making Statler and Waldorf the brothers Marley ("It's good to be heckling again!" "It's good to be doing anything again!"), so that somehow, "The Marleys were dead, to begin with," sounds perfectly correct and natural.

The songs are perfect to sing along to, the lines are endlessly quotable, and if you ever get the chance to watch it with Gonzo and Rizzo's commentary, I recommend it. It's a truly uplifting film, perfect for the whole family, at any time of the year - because wherever you find love, it feels like Christmas.  Although I do suspect the entire thing came about so that they could use the Fozziwig gag.

Honorable mentions:

As mentioned above, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation narrowly missed out and is an absolute classic of the often poorly realised Christmas comedy genre. Mickey's Christmas Carol was left out for not really being a feature film, at only twenty minutes long, but my, it's an epic twenty minutes. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Die Hard, but it's never going to make my top movies list, however good an actioner it is. I have fond memories of the Dudley Moore vehicle Santa Claus: The Movie, but I recognise that this is nostalgia and it is in no way a good film. The 1991 Raymond Briggs film Father Christmas also deserves a mention - it's far superior to The Snowman, although both are TV films and not really applicable to this list. The 1999 ITV production The Flint Street Nativity would probably top my Christmassy TV movies list.

WHO REVIEW: 9-3 & 9-4: Under the Lake/Before the Flood

With Being Human, Toby Whithouse brought together vampires, werewolves and ghosts, along with such elements as time travel, to remarkable effect. In Doctor Who, he's already had a stab at vampires, and now he's utilised both time travel and ghosts in a story with a fascinating set-up. It's a very clever idea, splitting the story across two time zones, so that characters can, in theory, meet their own ghosts in the future. It never quite runs with this idea, though. The concept of being able to not only see but actually speak with your ghost is compelling, but beyond a brief interaction between the Doctor and his ghost (revealed to be nothing of the sort in any case), the idea isn't explored. The fact that the ghosts are essentially incapable of communication rather ruins it anyway; they're not characters but sinister set dressing and hazards. It's undeniably effective, but it's the less interesting option. Equally, the Fisher King, is well designed and realised - at least in the underlit interior scenes, not looking quite so creepy stomping about in daylight. However, since he does little more than rant and murder people off screen, he's a very hollow and uninspiring villain. 

Huge respect for the inclusion of the talented Sophie Stone as Cass, a deaf actress playing a deaf character, unapologetically included not as a token to disabled sensibilities but simply as a strong, interesting character who brings a somewhat different perspective to adventure. Around the country, deaf children will be watching Doctor Who and seeing a deaf person in a heroic role, not only leading the guest characters but enthusiastically told by the Doctor that she is the smartest person in the room (barring himself, of course). It's a wonderfully positive move on the part of the series' creators. Oddly enough, the Doctor doesn't know sign language; a strange omission for the man who knows fifty million languages, even if the script did make a joke about it being deleted to make room for semaphore. It's understandable in real life terms, of course; very likely, Peter Capaldi doesn't know sign, and in any case, having Cass's signs translated makes it possible for the bulk of the audience to understand her lines. However, I watched Before the Flood in the company of a fluent signer who was translating along with the episode, and I can therefore say that any viewer who can sign will get more out of the it than one relying on the interpreter. 

The remaining guest cast are all very good indeed, although in many cases rather wasted in the parts they have. Zaqi Ismail is perfectly good as Lunn but lacks a great deal in character as written; Arsher Ali seemed at risk of the same during the first episode, but he, as Bennett, came into his own in the second part once he had something to play other than spooked. Paul Kaye, rightfully recognised now as a highly talented actor, is amusing as the snivelling Prentis, but is so quickly killed off that there was never really any chance to appreciate him. The same goes for Steven Robertson and, most of all, Colin MacFarlane; talented actors whose characters are given virtually no screen time before being bumped. Yes, they then get to do their best as hollow-eyed phantoms, but that's still a waste of genuinely fine acting talent. Most galling is the killing of O'Donnell, who, particularly in the second episode, develops into an infectiously likeable and entertainingly bloody-minded character before being killed off to give the male characters the necessary angst. I'm not making a vehement feminist point here; the best character in the story was female (Cass, of course), and since much of my upset at O'Donnell's death is that I fancy the pants off Morven Christie, I'd be pretty hypocritical. Nonetheless, it grates.

Capaldi shines, as always, even though, to be honest, he didn't have very strong material to work with this time, Nonetheless, he's an interesting enough actor to make any of his scenes compelling. Clara, though, is rather uninteresting in this story, and Jenna Coleman makes less of an impression than usual. Perhaps it's a good thing she's leaving this year; there doesn't seem to be much left to do with her character. 

Ultimately, the script is packed with potentially great ideas and characters that, for the most part, it fails to explore to full effect. For all its atmosphere - and I think we need more slow-paced, unsettling stories - it's a disappointing tale, relying on rather a dissatisfying interpretation of time travel that lacks real drama.

Casting Call: Sophie Stone is the first deaf actress in the series, but not the first deaf actor. That was Tim Barlow, who played Tyssan in 1979's Destiny of the Daleks. Barlow lost his hearing in a military incident, although has since recovered much of it through the use of a cochlear implant.

Nitpick: Why didn't the base crew try switching the lights to permanent day mode, so that the ghosts wouldn't be able to materialise? I realise that the ghosts took control of the day/night systems during the episode, but you'd have thought they'd at least try this rather obvious idea.

Continuity Corner: The future parts of the story are set in 2119, and it seems that not only are UNIT still operating, but the Doctor is still well known - enough that O'Donnell knows of him and his exploits, at least. We haven't really seen much of this period in the series; The Rebel Flesh/The Also People was set in the 22nd century, presumably the earlier part, since The Dalek Invasion of Earth essentially ruined human society from the 2150s onwards. Other stories set around this time include Nightmare of Eden and possibly some other outer space stories (Doctor Who tends to go for a generic spacey future in the classic series), but we see very little of Earth in this time. The ninth Doctor considered the year 2105 "a bit boring" in The End of the World. The existence of an alien ship doesn't seem to be a huge surprise to the base crew.

The Doctor's cheat cards include one that says "I should've known you didn't live in Aberdeen," a reference back to where he left Sarah Jane Smith, according to Whithouse's first Who episode, 2006's School Reunion.

Prentis is a Tivolian, a species introduced in the form of Gibbis in another Whithouse script, 2011's The God Complex. He notes that they were conquered by the Arcateenians, another species created by Whithouse, for the Torchwood episode "Greeks Bearing Gifts." They're one of the very few species to turn up in both that series and The Sarah Jane Adventures.

The Doctor ponders whether the ghosts are Flesh avatars (right period, as noted above), Autons (Spearhead from Space, et al) or digital copies in the Nethersphere (Dark Water/Death in Heaven).

Doctor fanatic O'Donnell references Rose, Martha and Amy, and refers to the 1980s being pre-Harold Saxon (The Sound of Drums) and "pre-the Moon exploding and a bat coming out" (Kill the Moon). She also mentions a Minister of War, but what this means is as yet unknown.

The Doctor once met Shirley Bassey. At least, he thinks he did; it might have been Iris Wildthyme in her Bassey-like second incarnation. 

HAMMERAMA: The Quiet Ones (2014)

Hammer's big movie for 2014, this was actually filmed in 2012 and held back, so it's perhaps appropriate that I missed it in the cinema and only got to see it once it was released on DVD. Hammer's modern films are struggling to make a huge impact, falling uncomfortably between two stools. One the one hand they want to provide the traditional scares and atmosphere of Hammer's classic productions, while on the other they need to do some new and more modern. The Quiet Ones certainly feels like Hammer, with a slow set-up, a manic set piece and an uncomfortable atmosphere. As for the other side of things, there is very little to mark this out as anything new. Even the 1974 setting seems to have been chosen to make this feel like good, old-fashioned Hammer.


The central idea is a tried and tested one. Jane, a disturbed young woman, is manifesting poltergeist activity, and after years of being shunted between foster families and asylums she is now in the care of Professor Joseph Coupland, who is determined to purge her of the psychological damage that he believes is causing the manifestations. Not to actually help her, mind you, but because he sees himself as a scientific pioneer. “Cure one, and we cure the world.” He has two students assisting him, Krissi and Harry, and recruits young cameraman Brian to record his experiments. It becomes apparent very quickly that Joseph is blind to anything but his own hypothesis, and that his treatment of Jane comes to little more than abuse.


The whole production has a nasty undercurrent to it, drawing attention to the abuse that the most vulnerable suffer behind closed doors. It does, to its credit, avoid sensationalising this for the most part. The core cast are all very good, although Rory Fleck-Byrne hasn't much to do with Harry, who's just there to be a third party in the seedy love triangle with Krissi and Joseph. Both Erin Richards and Sam Claflin are very good as Krissi and Brian, but their characters are pretty cliched. Brian is gauche and nervous, but grows some balls in the end. Krissi puts it about and gets jealous when she's not the centre of attention. So far, so off-the-peg. In fairness, Joseph isn't the most original creation either, but at least he has some depth to him, and Jared Harris is absolutely magnetic in the role. An actor with gravitas to spare, his performance makes you understand why people would be following him even after his dismissal by his peers. Even as his seedier, selfish side becomes apparent, and his self-assurance turns to desperation, he maintains his position as the head of the household.


Best is Olivia Cooke as Jane, who really sells her character's fear, anger and internal torment. Manifesting her problems as an alter ego called Evie, Jane is the source of all the paranormal activity in the film. The question that hangs over the film is whether Evie is nothing more than the personification of Jane's trauma, as Joseph believes, a possessing spirit, or something altogether stranger. There's a theme of the abuse of power, and with it, the blindness of belief, be it in the supernatural or a supposed scientific truth.


However, John Pogue's direction leads a lot to be desired. The film switches between Brian's home footage and standard cinematography. Picking one or the other would have worked, but by mixing the two Pogue creates a film that simply feels disjointed. The switched to Brian's footage also signpost that something spooky is going to happen, making otherwise shocking events seem predictable. That's not to deny that the film is effectively creepy, but it's the build-up, though slow, that is most effective. Once Jane's “possession” begins to fully manifest, events deteriorate rapidly, but are less powerful for all their shock value. The first major manifestation, a bizarre “teleplasmic” tentacle that reaches from Jane's throat, is a shocker, but looks ropey as hell. (And anyway, shouldn't that be “psychoplasmic?” Or did they not want it to sound too much like The Brood?)



The climactic sequence is undeniably powerful and distressing, as Joseph's attempt to cure Jane becomes increasingly desperate and Evie's power becomes more destructive. However, the final ending is crushingly predictable and frankly badly realised, and a poor ending can destroy the good work that went before it. Altogether, creepy and very well acted, but let down by an unambitious premise and lacklustre direction.