The Reverend Justin Somerton is called upon by Lord Peter Dattering to help add a much needed bit of cynicism to his mother's regular séances with the "gifted" Mr and Mrs Tyson. This he does with relish before returning to his main work the study of the time of Abbot Thomas and, perhaps, the achievement of uncovering the whereabouts of the legendary treasure that Abbot Thomas was said to have hidden somewhere around the monastery.
Shown recently on BBC4 as part of their season of ghost stories around Christmas time, this is a flawed but still quite enjoyable entry in the series. The flaws are mostly in the delivery of the story as it feels like it had time to fill. The first ten minutes seem to be done just to introduce Somerton as a cynic who is having none of this supernatural nonsense, but what purpose this serves is questionable and I wondered why it required a fifth of the film to do this. Certainly later we get no real play up of cynicism from Somerton to justify showing us his starting point. After this things do get a little better as we begin the investigation into the treasure in earnest and get into that. This is quite well developed even if the latter stages seem a bit rushed and dealt with too easily.
It is creepy though, which is the main thing, and the final image is quite chilling despite being very sudden and all too brief. Bryant leads the cast pretty well but deserved to have more time in fear on camera. Lavers is a little bland but this is as his character has it as well. The rest of the cast are OK but really it is the delivery from Clark that makes it work as he patiently delivers this chilly conclusion. Not brilliant then but still nicely creepy without anything in the way of gore or violence and much left to the imagination.
Shown recently on BBC4 as part of their season of ghost stories around Christmas time, this is a flawed but still quite enjoyable entry in the series. The flaws are mostly in the delivery of the story as it feels like it had time to fill. The first ten minutes seem to be done just to introduce Somerton as a cynic who is having none of this supernatural nonsense, but what purpose this serves is questionable and I wondered why it required a fifth of the film to do this. Certainly later we get no real play up of cynicism from Somerton to justify showing us his starting point. After this things do get a little better as we begin the investigation into the treasure in earnest and get into that. This is quite well developed even if the latter stages seem a bit rushed and dealt with too easily.
It is creepy though, which is the main thing, and the final image is quite chilling despite being very sudden and all too brief. Bryant leads the cast pretty well but deserved to have more time in fear on camera. Lavers is a little bland but this is as his character has it as well. The rest of the cast are OK but really it is the delivery from Clark that makes it work as he patiently delivers this chilly conclusion. Not brilliant then but still nicely creepy without anything in the way of gore or violence and much left to the imagination.