James is one of the finest horror writers of all time, and during his prolific career he cultivated a formula for fear which just worked. The premise to his stories, almost invariably, is that we have a stuffy academic, full of scientific assurance of how the world works mixed with the sort of atheism one can accrue from spending a lifetime flitting between cities and academia.
This protagonist will arrogantly blunder into the countryside and stumble upon one pagan relic or another, upsetting forces which the locals know to leave alone. So begins the horrific erosion of our protagonist's scepticism as dark spirits conspire to take a life. Think Doctor Faustus meats The Wicker Man and you've more or less got M.R. James.
Amongst all of James' ghost stories, and indeed amongst all of their dramatisations, one stands out as the finest, and that is Whistle and I'll Come to You. If you have not seen the 1968 film of this, then watch it now, Michael Hordern's performance as the bumbling and beautiful Professor Parkins alone makes it worth watching.
So imagine my excitement when I heard that the B.B. bloody old C. were re-making Whistle and I'll Come to You this Christmas. With John 'the-only-reason-you-should-watch-the-film-of-1984' Hurt as the main character. Before you read what I have to say about the 2010 re-make, you might want to watch it for yourself.
Still here? OK, well between them, Neil Cross (the 'adaptor' of this story... that's right, they've credited him as a plug rather than a writer) and Andy de Emmony (director) have killed Whistle and I'll Come to You.
They don't realise how this could be the case though. They did everything by the book, didn't they? They kept the one bit everyone remembers from the original... an old man running away from a white blanket on a beach. They kept the loose premise... old bloke alone in a coastal hotel. And they added in some fool-proof fear elements didn't they? Like a creepy old woman... and a mysterious banging at the door... and a statue that you turn away from you only to find that OHMYFUCK it's turned back to face you!
So why is it that the 2010 re-make of Whistle and I'll Come to You is such a pube on the proverbial toilet seat of ghost stories? Well, firstly you will quickly notice that the film doesn't look anything like a ghost story. Take this shot here from the opening of the original:
Now take this shot from de Emmony's version:
Scared, are you? No of course you're not, you're dealing with the colour palette of a tropical paradise. And this isn't just a colour vs. black and white thing; they could have made the mise-en-scene look vaguely ghostly quicker than you can say 'desaturate':
But when I find myself wanting to offer basic image-rendering advice to a director, I can't help but think that there must be something more to why I don't like a film than photography. One of the big things that irks me about this re-make is the director's perverse fetish for this door:
***
Prop-Guy Steve: Hey Andy, I got that stuff you asked for.
Andy de Emmony: Ah cool, you got the spooky ring we find on the beach, 'cos what's the point in finding a whistle? I don't see why we should be expected to include whistles in this story, rings are in right now, what with Lord of the Rings, and The Ring and Captain Planet, and all that other trendy shit the kids are into now.
Prop-Guy Steve: Oh yeah, I got the ring. That ain't what I'm most proud of though...
Andy de Emmony: Oooh shit, I remember now, I asked you to get a creepy marble bust of some dude smiling. You get one of those? Don't worry if you can't, I'll just throw in more shots of the ring. That's a point actually, do you think it'd be cool to re-name this film 'Don't Pick Up The Ring'? Sounds more bad ass than that gay whistle thing, right?
Prop-Guy Steve: Yeah, I've got a creepy-as-fuck statue, don't worry about that. No, I've got something much, much better to show you.
Andy de Emmony: Steve, you're killing me, what is it?
Prop-Guy Steve: You know when you asked for a kinda creepy looking door?
Andy de Emmony: Yeah?
Prop-Guy Steve: Well tell me if this isn't the creepiest fucking door you've ever seen in your life!
Prop-Guy Steve pulls a large blanket off a fake door that looks like, if we're being honest, you paid a room full of teenage media-interns to design a 'creepy door' for a ghost story and they eagerly got to work having spent twenty minutes Googling pictures of haunted mansions.
Andy de Emmony: (literally jizzing everywhere) Oh my fucking god that is the scariest door I've ever seen. Right... I'm cutting out every possible bit of padding in this film and throwing in more shots of that absolutely bitchin' door. Oh god I'm gonna cry.
***
The most potent reason for this film not working however, is that John Hurt's character has been adapted into someone who does not belong in a ghost story. MR James' protagonists' are always entertainingly pretentious oafs who get their comeuppance for being so sceptical of forces beyond their understanding. As a result, the old dramatisations of these tales entertain us by letting us spend the first half scoffing at an idiot and the second half enjoying the idiot getting scared witless by the very forces he once mocked.
The 2010 version chooses to ladle on the sympathy. Hurt's protagonist is struggling to deal with his wife's dementia and the guilt that comes from putting her in a home. He is never happy, never doing anything but think of his poor (creepy) wife. Gone is the charming, manic incessant rambling of Michael Horden, dispelling superstitious types over the breakfast table as he shovels sausages into his mouth. In stead we have... well, just a poor miserable bloke.
We are not entertained by a creepy ghost story - we are given the tail of a man killed by his own guilt. Because he cannot stop his wife's Alzheimer's. By all means, tell this story, but don't dress it up as an MR James' adaptation, be honest with yourself and make it an episode of Casualty. An episode of Casualty which tries desperately hard in its final 50 seconds to make you believe that you have just been watching a certain Japanese horror film about a cursed video tape.
