Nigel P In contrast to Sir Michael Hordern's character in the 1968 adaption of this classic tale, John Hurt's character (James Parkin) is far more socially adept. His wife, suffering from dementia, has been put into the hands of Lesley Sharp and her legion of nurses at a care home, and is revisiting a few 'old haunts' with the intention of taking a few photographs to bring back and show her. And yet, his conversation with lone receptionist Carol (Sophie Thompson), he – in fact both of them – address themselves as much as each other, both unknowingly trapped in their isolation.Rather than a whistle, it is a wedding ring he finds on the shore. The subsequent apparition he is followed by on the beach is surprisingly less of a special effect than in the original – a white, blurred mannequin.The hotel he stays in is typical of those hotels near the English coastline – magnificent yet weathered, sprawling but intimate. Out of season, Parkin is alarmed to find he is entirely alone during one fitful night. The porcelain bust of a head on a shelf in his room seems poised to move of its own accord – the camera teases as much, yet it remains static, much to our relief.Just as we never knew the nature of the spirit in the original, we are just as much deliberately left mostly in the dark here too – if indeed the spectres aren't figments of Parkin's very literal imagination. Here we can speculate that the very frightening scene at the end features the spirit of Parkin's wife blaming him for leaving her alone, or his own guilt. Either way, the effect and the lead-up to it, is genuinely unnerving.This 2010 version received mixed reviews. Some were incredulous, stating that Miller's early version didn't need a remake/reimagining, whilst others criticised the way the story was tweaked – so it seems Neil Cross's adaption could never win with some people. I love this version – it avoids repetition and does something new whilst retaining the original's atmosphere of dread.

AlanJ2 This is a modern version of the classic MR James ghost story 'Whistle and I'll Come To You'. To his credit Neil Cross has tried to find a modern way into the story and has turned it into a tale about a man whose wife is lost to Alzheimer's. Unfortunately what emerges has little resonance (the Alzheimer's stuff is patently phony--sorry Neil all sufferers from the illness do not act like corpses)and also zero connection to the original. All that survives is a lonely hotel by the seaside, a lonely man and...well not much else. Not even the whistle remains. The writer might just as well have stopped trading on the classic name and author and done an original story . Except of course if he had it would never have been made. Nobody is saying we need a slavish copy. Jonathan Miller's earlier classic version was recognisably the same story but it was still changed to brilliant effect. Cross just grafts a mediocre ending on and leaves it at that. The result is quite atmospherically directed but all else goes for nothing. What exactly was the point?

Leofwine_draca The BBC had a tradition of making some exceptionally spooky TV movie ghost stories based on the writings of M. R. James back in the 1970s – and WHISTLE AND I'LL COME TO YOU is their latest attempt to recall those much-loved classics. Unfortunately, while this 55 minute production is beautifully shot and full of a sense of gradually creeping menace, the whole thing is ruined by a needless updating of the storyline so that it becomes almost unrecognisable. Gone is the old whistle of the story, replaced by an old ring, and gone is the nameless horror lurking in the protagonist's bed sheets in favour of a more "updated" psychological torment. Therefore the title is now redundant and the story bears little resemblance to James's original.John Hurt is fine in the leading role, playing a refreshingly ordinary man for a change, and Sophie Thompson is also good value as the hotel receptionist. The winner, though, is director Andy De Emmony, who creates a supremely atmospheric look and feel to the production, with good old fashion scares straight out of THE HAUNTING, a suitably bleak backdrop and a wonderfully spine-tingling climax – fingers under the door – before THAT silly twist. Sadly, Neil Cross's look-at-me-I'm-better-than-James screenplay is a real letdown; if only they'd let somebody with a genuine affection for the genre, like Mark Gatiss, have a stab at it instead!

Muldwych I think it's important to begin by saying that the BBC's efforts to bring the classic ghost stories of M.R. James to the small screen have, over the years, been a continual source of joy for lovers of old school horror such as myself. While not every adaptation has been as accomplished an approach to film-making as Jonathan Miller's iconic 1968 realisation of 'Whistle & I'll Come To You' and Lawrence Gordon-Clarke's memorable interpretation of 'A Warning To The Curious', even the comparatively more pedestrian entries have evoked not only the much-anticipated foreboding and supernatural atmosphere of the source material, but a good degree of faithfulness to their underlying themes. This, however, cannot be said for 2010's apparently necessary remake of 'Whistle And I'll Come To You', wherein the terms 'remake', 'intuitive understanding' and 'source material' are applied with the same degree of dubiousness as any arguments in support of the production's validity.For those unfamiliar, as indeed many still will be after watching the new Whistle, the plot of the original centres around the cocksure academic bachelor Professor Parkins (Parkins in the original text), who takes a vacation during the off-season at a remote Norfolk seaside village for golf and exploration, the latter prompted by a colleague's request that he inspect the remains of an old Templar preceptory to determine its archaeological worth. This he duly does, and within the crumbling ruins, discovers an ancient whistle, unable to resist putting its practical function to the test. From that moment on, Parkins is never alone, having awoken forces beyond description and quite beyond all human understanding. The heart of the story is the folly of arrogant presumption, that there will always be realms of understanding beyond mortal man, and to believe you can quantify existence is to invite downfall. James's overconfident scholar and protagonist is the perfect vehicle to deliver this message, and an archetype that the writer, who was himself a highly-accomplished academic, knew better than most. The rapid destruction of Parkins's self-assured, almost autistic world is almost as disconcerting as the unknown forces he has unleashed, for which we are given only fleeting glimpses and very little explanation.All of which clearly flew over the heads of the 2010 production team, who presumably felt that the core elements of the story were its beach setting, the university professor more inclined to the rational than the superstitious, and the general bleakness of his existence. So long as some vague continuity with these components was maintained, it seemed perfectly reasonable to completely rewrite both story and characterization to the point where the result was a pale shadow of its former self yet could still be legitimately broadcast under the same title.The Neil Cross teleplay, in which the action is relocated to the present day, sees a Professor James Parkin committing his wife, apparently suffering from advanced senile dementia, to a care home before taking a long overdue vacation on the Kentish Coast in order to come to terms with his loss. The seaside resort also happens to be one of their old stomping grounds, and the discovery of a ring in the sand dunes brings to life more than mere memories for Parkin. Something seems keen to communicate with him on the deserted coast, and it may not be as unfamiliar as it first appears.Cross's script quite spectacularly manages to miss the point of the James tale, retaining only superficial vestiges of its substance. Gone is the arrogant, antisocial university mandarin of the original. In his place is the more socially-capable doting husband whose rational worldview is in no way extreme and borne of great personal tragedy – again entirely caused by the most intimate of social interaction (the original Parkins wouldn't even know what to do with a woman). The character's ultimate fate is seemingly more extreme, yet far more simplistic and obvious, undercutting the psychological ramifications of his plight.The 'ghost' of the story is equally less subtle and, by the climax of the tale, extremely more quantifiable than its antecedent, of which one understands no more by the end than they did when it first appears. Its intangible mystery is precisely the point of its existence, being something so alien that not even the well-read professor can define it.The whole dramatisation is, in short, comprehensively dumbed down. The rapid departure from the original narrative is, according to those behind the camera, because Jonathan Miller had already dramatised the story so well that there seemed little point in retreading the same ground. The creative reigns are firmly in the grip of Marshall McLuhan's prophesied generation wherein the televisual medium has become the message for those who work in the industry. Television is its own reference point and must now be the source material for rehashing plots with diminishing returns. Heaven forfend that the book be the wellspring of inspiration instead. Telling the same story is surely the point of the exercise: if there is little point in retreading ground well-covered in the past, this, surely, is proof that the endeavour was unnecessary in the first place.Cashing in on a popular title is perhaps the greatest offence and indeed irony, since the Cross script under the direction of Euros Lyn does deliver its own chilling moments. Add to this the very capable cast headed by John Hurt and Gemma Jones and some excellent location shoots, and there is much to otherwise praise. More damage is done to it by being arrogant enough to masquerade it as something it is not, whereas a more favourable analysis would be quite easy if it were touted as a new work in its own right. It isn't, however, being instead an unwarranted 'Disneyfication' of a far darker psychological piece that a new audience will mistakenly equate with Britain's greatest master of the macabre. It is the same blind egotistical behaviour that Hollywood is typically blamed for. With them, however, such silliness is expected.