The Signalman
1976
This installment of the BBC's GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS tells the haunting tale of a railway worker (Denholm Elliott) who sees frightening visions that appear just before horrible train wrecks. Are the visions his imagination...or something terrifyingly real Read more
| Starring | Denholm Elliott, Bernard Lloyd, Reginald Jessop, Carina Wyeth |
|---|---|
| Director | Lawrence Gordon Clark |
| Genres | Horror |
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The Signalman
This installment of the BBC's GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS tells the haunting tale of a railway worker (Denholm Elliott) who sees frightening visions that appear just before horrible train wrecks. Are the visions his imagination...or something terrifyingly real
| Starring | Denholm Elliott, Bernard Lloyd, Reginald Jessop, Carina Wyeth |
|---|---|
| Director | Lawrence Gordon Clark |
| Studio | BFI VIDEO |
| Run time | DVD: 40 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Horror |
| Language | DVD: English |
| Released | DVD: not available Production year: 1976 |
| Format | DVD |
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Most helpful member's review
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6 out of 6 people found this review helpful
A Ghost Story for Christmas...
Part of the BBC's 'Ghost Story for Christmas' range produced during the 1970's. Words cannot describe how wonderful this is. The best bet for first time viewers is to take the following into account: It's made for TV, it was produced in the 1970's on a low budget, it's based on a Charles Dicken's short story. Still reading? It values atmosphere, quality acting and story telling over special effects and cheep scares (no cats jumping out of closets in this one). You may enjoy this if you liked 'The Others'. You will enjoy this if you liked 'The Woman in Black'.
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Most recent members' review
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3 out of 3 people found this review helpful
Dickens' best ghost story
The Signalman is based on a celebrated Dickens' ghost story of unrivalled uncanniness. Our hero visits a lonesome railway signalman and hears his tale of an onimous haunting: at the mouth of the tunnel a figure can sometimes be seen, and time has shown that his appearance portends some terrible accident on the line. Our hero tries to reason with the signalman, reassuring him that the figure is merely a figment of his imagination, resulting from his lonely existence in this miserable and isolated spot. However, subsequent tragic events lead our hero to regret these words and to question the extent of his own responsibility for the signalman's fate.
The film is very short and unmistakeably low-budget but this is in keeping with the simplicity and sparcity of the original tale. Director Lawrence Gordon Clark stays pleasingly close to Dickens' text, but it is up to the viewer to decide whether his decision to show us the ghostly figure's face is the right one. -
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