The Secret of Crickley Hall (2012)

"A year after their son goes missing, a family moves to Crickley Hall. When supernatural events begin to take place, Eve feels the house is somehow connected to her lost son."

It's been so long since I read James Herbert's 2006 novel which the BBC adapted for this lacklustre Hallowe'en TV offering that I almost forgot what a derivative crock of shit it was. I'm not going to say that Herbie plagiarised "The Devil's Backbone" (2001), but he was clearly influenced by it before "Britishing-up" the story. If he says otherwise, I'll find it very difficult to believe him. It wouldn't be the first time that James Herbert sailed too close to the wind as his famous lawsuit over "The Spear" will confirm. His "Sepulchre" is hardly a million miles away from Clive Barker's "The Damnation Game" as far I remember either.

In fairness, the classic "ghost story with children in it" pattern goes back even before "The Haunting" (1963) or "The Innocents" (1961); both of which have influenced every ghost story ever since. With so many supernatural movies in such a short space of time including "The Others" (2001), "Saint Ange" (2004), "Fragile" (2005), "The Orphanage" (2007), the TV series "Marchlands" (2011), and the even more recent "The Awakening" (2011), it's pretty obvious that there would be some similarities.

Given the basic premise, I'd be foolish not to throw in "The Dark" (2005) and "Half Light" (2006) as more of the same unimaginative cloning from the last decade although "The Haunting of Julia" (1977) and "The Changeling" (1981) also dealt with the "bereavement and haunting" formula long before them. There's just nothing new when it comes to ghost stories.

If you look further into the "six degrees of separation" style connections around "The Secret of Crickley Hall" as a TV miniseries, it's far more amusing where they lead. Director Joe Ahearne is most famous for "This Life" which I'm sure I've mentioned on this blog before as being the series which gave Andrew Lincoln of "The Walking Dead" fame his big break. In between the two, Andrew Lincoln was in "Afterlife" (2006) where he played a bereaved father who had lost his son and teamed up with a psychic played by Lesley Sharp. That series was written by Stephen Volk who wrote "The Awakening" (2011). Although there's no real connection, Lesley Sharp was in an episode of "Doctor Who" and so was Tom Ellis who stars in "The Secret of Crickley Hall". They weren't in the same episode or even the episodes of "Doctor Who" which were written by Joe Ahearne, but you can still smell the BBC nepotism a mile away.

Tom Ellis as Gabe.

Just to complicate matters even more, James Herbert's "Haunted" was originally a screenplay which was rejected as a BBC miniseries, Stephen Volk wrote the BBC's infamous "Ghostwatch" (1992), and Lesley Sharp recently appeared in "Whistle and I'll Come to You" (2010) - another BBC ghost story. If you also look at Tom Ellis' list of acting credits on the IMDb, he's a definite BBC regular and also appeared in "The Fades" - the axed supernatural drama from 2010. It doesn't take a genius to work out that all these people know each other or of each other to some extent. How many generic ghost stories were passed between the writers and the decision makers at the BBC is another matter though. There are too many coincidences for there not to be some collusion along the way. And people say that Hollywood is shady!

Conspiracy theories aside, it will always look like Herbert copied Volk who then copied Herbert back before Ahearne was brought into the shenanigans. The rivalry and borrowing by all three writers is probably more noticeable than any of them realise themselves.

After all this rambling, the main problem with "The Secret of Crickley Hall" is that it's an overlong story which can be condensed into one or two sentences. Basically, there's a wartime orphanage/home for evacuees where the sadistic governor kills a little boy by circumcising him so severely that he cuts his pecker off in the process. The governor covers up the crime during a flood and ends up as a ghost along with all the children he abused. In the present day, a family whose son was kidnapped a year ago go to live in the former orphanage, and all the ghosties get riled up to solve two mysteries in one.

Give or take a couple of even more sordid details, that's "The Secret of Crickley Hall" in a nutshell (pardon the pun). Indeed, it could be retitled, "The Legend of the Mutilated Peepee" since that's the big secret. I don't care that this is a spoiler because I can pretty much guarantee that you won't see the little "Jewish" boy get mutilated or "The Secret of Crickley Hall" turn into "The Jew Who Bled To Death". Oh, no, the politically correct BBC won't dare risk upsetting anybody with that. The last time they were brave enough to be controversial in a drama was when Dennis Potter was still alive. Curiously, they don't seem to care about overpaid Jonathan Ross or Jeremy Clarkson flapping their insulting gums though.

As a miniseries, "The Secret of Crickley Hall" tones down the really disgusting stuff to such an extent that the barebones story is boring beyond belief. The book was short of scares anyway, but the brutality, paedophilia and incest which covered its weaknesses are scarcely touched upon in this pussified TV adaptation. I remember when the BBC used to have more balls. Honestly, "The Secret of Crickley Hall" makes me ashamed to be a British horror fan. What the Hell has happened to Britain since I've been away? What happened to all the gritty dramas?

Olivia Cooke as Nancy.

The characters in "The Secret of Crickley Hall" are merely stereotypical ciphers to move on the uninspired plot anyway, but the deadpan delivery of the actors in this miniseries is reprehensible. Olivia Cooke is the worst culprit. Although she's very pretty, and looks young enough to be in the orphanage as one of the orphans rather than their teacher, her monotone voice can't be disguised by cutely letting one glycerine tear run down her cheek. Could she act as if she cared even less? Can she act though? Probably not since she has to be all of 16 years old.

As for Tom Ellis (a.k.a. Dr Oliver from "Eastenders"), he's a little bit better as the sceptical Gabe Caleigh even though his taste in women must have gone on the wonk for him to end up with Suranne Jones (the mouthy one from "Coronation Street") as his onscreen wife. Okay, so a higher power miscast them together, but that's not how those of us with an unwilling suspension of disbelief view such a lack of chemistry or realism. All you want to say is, "He could have done so much better!" At least neither of them has mispronounced the word "us" as "uzzz" yet despite playing Northerners.

There's some bizarre thing about little fingers and a psychic link which makes absolutely no sense either. There doesn't even appear to be anything odd about Suranne Jones' hands in close-up so I have no idea what that's all about. Either it's a poor effect, bad camerawork, something that seemed more important in the script than it really was, or just feeble execution to match every other part of this travesty. It's hard to tell amidst the conflation and censorship. The psychic link homages "The Shining", of course, as does Tom Ellis' bad "Here's Johnny!" impression. I don't think he even tried to do any better. I can't blame him.

Suranne Jones as Eve.

Poor old David Warner has been wheeled out for this thing too as the old guy who used to be a young guy and knows everything. I've forgotten the name of that trope, but, yes, it's yet another familiar one. It's nice to see David Warner in something again, and he's the best actor in "The Secret of Crickley Hall" anyway. Not to take anything away from Donald Sumpter who has been in absolutely everything over the years, but he's not much cop (pardon another pun since he was in "The Bill") as a paranormal investigator. If he has more than four lines in the final episode, I will be shocked.

It's no surprise that both veteran actors have also been in "Doctor Who" recently. "The Secret of Crickley Hall" could even be "Former Doctor Who Actors Do Ghosties" if you want to be a real bitch about it. I suppose it makes a change from "Eastenders Does Ghosties" which has already been done to death.

I have no idea why the setting was changed from Devon to "oop North" except that occasionally the BBC vainly attempts to make Southerners believe that anywhere above Watford isn't full of Neanderthals who eat their own young. It's probably part of the same equal opportunities nonsense at the BBC which has forced every gay and racial minority actor into "Doctor Who" and "Eastenders" over the years. Yes, all six of them have been assured work by the same hypocritical company which allegedly turned a blind eye to Jimmy Saville interfering with little kids for over 40 years. Following that scandal, no wonder the BBC started to get cold feet about airing "The Secret of Crickley Hall". The ironic reminders in the subject matter are uncomfortably close to home, and there aren't any black or gay characters to redress the balance.

Susan Lynch as Lili.

The BBC missed a golden opportunity to replace the psychic with a Jamaican or Indian, but at least they've stayed truer to the book there. They couldn't use anyone Scottish either without reminding everyone of their stupid decision to axe "Sea of Souls". Knowing that Susan Lynch, who plays Lili Peel, fills the "minority" quotient by being Irish somewhat amused me. I bet someone at some point wanted Lesley Sharp for the role except that would have really given away how similar the present day part of "The Secret of Crickley Hall" is to "Afterlife". I still noticed though.

Since I'm writing this after seeing only two episodes, I can't say if the final one will improve anything. I missed "The Secret of Crickley Hall" when it was shown on BBC America (on October 28th) so I've had to follow the postponed UK schedule. I'm sure that the story won't change that much from the novel unless gay aliens fly in and abduct everybody or something comes out of left field like that. You can never tell what will happen with BBC TV adaptations of horror books as "The Haunted Airman" or any of M.R. James' ghost stories over the years can attest to. If it was a Stephen King adaptation, we would all be waiting for another giant spider so be thankful that this is James Herbert. Herbie just likes to destroy everything at the end so be prepared to see your licence fee wasted on some half-arsed flooding effects or explosions.

With the story taking place in two time periods, the most interesting parts seem to happen in World War II. Whether or not that continues, we will just have to wait and see. "The Secret of Crickley Hall" concludes tomorrow.

James Herbert's "Ash" (2012) - a book review

"The World Grand Master of Horror cordially invites you to an idyllic Scottish retreat with beautiful rooms, luscious gardens, a breathtaking view... and a basement full of secrets."

I don't often write book reviews, but since "Ash" is the very latest novel by my favourite horror author, James Herbert, I thought I'd better say something about what kept me occupied for nearly two days instead of watching more DVDs.

Because "Ash" has only been available to buy for less than a week now, I'll try to avoid giving too many spoilers just in case you are less ignorant than me and still like to read books. I read the Kindle version of "Ash" because, basically, I don't like to leave the house unless I really have to. I also swore to give up collecting the hardback first editions of James Herbert's novels after how appalling "The Secret of Crickley Hall" turned out to be. I still can't believe that "The Secret of Crickley Hall" has been turned into a BBC TV miniseries which is due to be shown this year around Hallowe'en. Out of all of his books to dramatise, they certainly chose one of the weakest. I will, of course, still watch it and review it eventually.

Even the worst James Herbert books are still better than anything by Stephen "I-can't-do-endings-so-I'll-just-add-a-monster-spider-or-the-devil" King, so I was hoping that he was going to completely amaze me after not publishing anything since 2006. With all the delays, probably due to various rewrites and edits, I'd been looking forward to reading "Ash" for over a year. The same thing happened with "The Secret of Crickley Hall" so, the longer it took to appear, the more concerned I got that it was going to be another disappointment.

While definitely not as horrific as James Herbert's earlier novels such as "The Rats" or "The Fog", "Ash" still had several good moments. Unfortunately they were few and far between. The trouble was that it all came across like a YA horror novel rather than something truly terrifying for adults, and I felt like I had read most of it before. Bearing in mind that I'm one of the few who has read all of James Herbert's books as they came out over the years, the similarities to "Others" plus the "meta" references to "The Rats" at the end were a bit of a let down which most new readers wouldn't notice.

If you want to know how thoroughly I read this book, let me just tell you that there was a printing error early on with the word "table" missing the "t" at the beginning: "Pritchard didn’t rise but extended a hand across the able." It was the only one I found, so fair enough, but as with all James Herbert books, I devoured this thing and somewhat foolishly hung on every word.

Although "Ash" more than made up for the lacklustre "The Secrets of Crickley Hall", it was still overlong, kind of stupid, too far-fetched, and several chapters full of reworked conspiracy theories were unnecessary padding. The chapter involving a policewoman provided some of the most unnatural dialogue and exposition that I've ever had the misfortune to read, and its placement in the story was ill-timed. It didn't help that the most important subjects of that chapter then turned up immediately afterwards with no mystery left to who they were whatsoever. In fact, with the details then hammered home yet again for the hard of understanding, the dumbing-down was quite obnoxious.

There were even a couple of stylistic annoyances which reminded me of the earlier "'48", but I'm willing to bet that James Herbert did that for an in-joke. The biggest problem I had with "Ash" was that the whole thing seemed to be either the script for a really bad movie or a badly written parody of everything James Herbert has written before. The plot was so weak that, if I wanted to, I could write a synopsis of the entire story in one sentence and save you the trouble of reading this book at all, but I won't.

I've never liked the David Ash character or, to be completely honest, any of the main characters in James Herbert's novels. The Pan Macmillan site calls David Ash "one of James Herbert's best-loved characters" which I assume to mean that James Herbert loves that character because I don't know of anyone else who feels that way. Really, how can you love a character who is distant, often hypocritical, and whose internal monologue is a mass of inconsistent self-doubt and guilt?

The vignettes in the novels have nearly always been more interesting than the main action, but, alas, they felt censored somehow in "Ash" compared to the really raw and perverted scenes of, for example, "The Fog". Were they toned down intentionally or has James Herbert just become a lot tamer as he's become an old man? His written style certainly hasn't improved either because, if I didn't know any better, I would swear that "Ash" was a piece of fan fiction written by a twelve-year-old for other twelve-year-olds. Really, it was that bad, In fairness, most of his books had the same style, but I didn't notice when I was younger. I read most of them between the age of eight and twelve-years-old myself.

Imagine, if you will, that someone took four other James Herbert novels, namely "Others", "Sepulchre", "The Spear" and "Domain", pulled out all the pages, stuck them all back together in a random order, added a ton of boring stuff about the British Royal family, and tied it all together with the David Ash character who appeared to be a rewritten version of Kelso from "The Jonah". That's exactly how "Ash" was for me and don't even get me started on how predictable it all was. I even noticed the obligatory reference to James Herbert's wife when she appeared as the preferred physical type of a former priest/IRA member. How touching.

I did find it slightly amusing that James Herbert was so stuck for characters that he named one of them after the computer from "Family Fortunes" and created a living version of "The Visible Man" anatomy model for another. The tastelessness of the latter character's identity will undoubtedly come to bite James Herbert on the ass especially when coupled with the disrespect he showed to the Royal family in this book. I assume James Herbert only put them in because he recently got an OBE. He'll probably lose it just as quickly if the Royals ever read this guff. Not that I even care since I've never had any respect for the Royal family either.

I found "Ash" particularly revolting for other reasons. Since I love cats, it was because of the wildcat-filled chapters (55 and 56) that, lamentably, after spending most of my life as a James Herbert fan, he caused me to never want to read another of his books ever again. These chapters were almost as vile as something by Nick Sharman and definitely up there with the Mattie Devore moment from Stephen King's "Bag of Bones" which made me throw the book across the room and vow never to read another thing which that author ever writes either.

As far as scary books go, "Ash" turned out to be more like some kind of political/spy novel rather than a ghost story especially with its inclusion of a hitman who was repeatedly said to look like Donald Pleasance. The fat man in charge of Comraich Castle was, in my mind, the spitting image of Auric Goldfinger. Blofeld and Goldfinger in the same novel? This was more James Bond than James Herbert. The secret organisation with their private jets, helicopters, heavily-armed platoon of security guards, assassins, and "The Prisoner"-style retreat were hardly original. The setting just wasn't scary and the descriptions in the gorier scenes were rather tame in comparison to the overwritten descriptions of everything else.

Its ending noticeably owed more to "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" as far as the main protagonists were concerned although, with three further epilogues, one reeked of contrived horror movie finales, and the truly final, more comedic scene delivered what is undoubtedly James Herbert's own message to his once loyal fans.

James Herbert has always appeared to be a very nice man in TV interviews, but ever since he made a fortune from his last great horror novels of the early '80s, the increasing contempt which he has shown for his readers through his poorly written books has been extremely disappointing.

"Ash" was released on August 30th, 2012. I don't recommend that you buy it unless you are a diehard James Herbert fan, but if you're not, by all means still go ahead and find out for yourself just how low "The World Grand Master of Horror" has sunk as a writer. With the novel currently at number two in the UK's "Bestselling Books" chart, either the marketing worked very well or British people have become very stupid and/or desperate for something new to read. What a shame.

James Herbert Movie Adaptations

I've been dying to write something about my favourite horror author, James Herbert, for some time. Since this is a horror movie review blog and I don't really deal with literature on it, the only way I can think of working something in about "Herbie" is by briefly reviewing the movie adaptations of a few of his books.


The Survivor (1981)



The first adaptation of one of James Herbert's novels was, surprisingly, an Australian production which still roped in the talents of the very English Robert Powell and Jenny Agutter. James Herbert didn't think much of it and claimed that he fell asleep during the screening. I can't say that I'm surprised. "The Survivor" differs greatly from the book and, in particular, Jenny Agutter plays the part of what was originally an old blind man. It's still quite a creepy film but, due to conflation, it all seems confused. The book, on the other hand, is a very straightforward ghost story and very sad at the end.


The Rats / Deadly Eyes (1982)



I didn't see this for the first time until the middle of the '80s on a schoolfriend's Betamax video recorder. I was expecting a lot more than small dogs dressed up as giant rats! Even though some of the character names were similar, moving this out of London to Toronto and changing the story considerably meant that it had very little to do with the book. "The Rats" (2002) starring Mädchen Amick is far closer to James Herbert's idea yet he doesn't get any mention in the credits for that film. "Deadly Eyes" is an absolute abomination which can't be saved by Scatman Crothers and should be avoided.


Haunted (1995)



Bearing in mind that the novel started out as a screenplay for a BBC TV series, this should have been good. Also combining the considerable talents of Aidan Quinn, Kate Beckinsale, Anthony Andrews and John Gielgud could have made this a classic. Unfortunately, it's again so different to the book, with an emphasis on a ghostly love story rather than supernatural revenge, that it's just not James Herbert anymore. It's arguably the best adaptation so far but the dated effects are very weak (especially the fire scenes created with Paintbox) and all the scares have been inexplicably left out.


Fluke (1995)



Although the New English Library paperback edition of "Fluke" was labelled originally as "horror" eventually someone realised and changed it to "fiction". "Fluke" isn't a horror story but it certainly involves the supernatural, reincarnation, and is a pretty good thriller. Possibly making a PG version with the voice talents of Matthew Modine and Samuel L. Jackson seemed like the best way to sell the story but moving it to America killed it for British James Herbert fans. Even Eric Stoltz, Nancy Travis and Ron Perlman were involved in this so it isn't actually a bad film but it's nowhere near as effective or moving as the book.


James Herbert obviously wrote far more books than these somewhat lacklustre movie adaptations might have you believe if you aren't British. He wrote a new book nearly every year as I was growing up and, because they were released near my birthday, I ended up reading and collecting all the first edition hardbacks.

Here's a quick list of the titles and the years they came out:
The Rats (1974), The Fog (1975), The Survivor (1976), Fluke (1977), The Spear (1978) - which I collected much later during my early teenage years.
Lair (1979), The Dark (1980), The Jonah (1981), Shrine (1983), Domain (1984), Moon (1985), The Magic Cottage (1986), Sepulchre (1987), Haunted (1988) - which I received as birthday presents.
Creed (1990), Portent (1992), The City (1993), The Ghosts of Sleath (1994), '48 (1996), Others (1999), Once (2001), Nobody True (2003), The Secret of Crickley Hall (2006) - which I bought for myself.

Such was my obsession that I even bought the paperback versions in all their different incarnations (including "The Rats" for Filofax), the Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer game of "The Rats" (1985), most of the audio books on cassette and CD, and, of course, the non-fiction/biographies - By Horror Haunted (1992) and James Herbert's Dark Places (1993).

As the years went by, the number of new books became considerably less both in frequency and quality. Even though it hurts me to say it, there are at least ten books in my James Herbert collection which are not worth the paper that they were printed on. I'm not going to name and shame them but I even have the updated paperback biography which I left behind in England without ever fully reading.

James Herbert will always be "Britain's Number One Horror Author" and, even at his worst, he will always be better than Stephen King. I've got a feeling that he's pretty much written everything that he will ever publish now even though there is a rumour that he has written a new book - Ash - which is due out later this year.


My favourite James Herbert books: