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Saturday 26 December 2015

Crooked House

'Crooked House' was a three episode mini series written and co-produced by Mark Gatiss in 2008.  The series is an obvious homage to Gatiss' love affair with the Gothic supernatural horrors of writers such as M.R. James and the films of the Hammer and Amicus studios and it could easily have been presented in that most Amicus of formats, the portmanteau, but instead here we have three separate episodes featuring interlinked tales narrated by Gatiss' museum curator.

The tale telling is triggered when new homeowner Ben (Lee Ingleby) unearths a door knocker that he takes to museum curator Gatiss who believes it to be a remnant of the locally infamous, but now demolished, Geap Manor.

The curator tells two tales of the Manor, one from the 18th century and another from the early 20th before the third episode transpires in 'real time' so to speak.

There's a nice period feel to the whole thing and it does come across as a labour of love but it also comes across as a bit, well, cheap looking.  The stories though are suitably creepy, particularly the third, and there's a perfectly predicable but also perfectly correct ending to the whole thing.

Buy it here - Crooked House [DVD] - or watch it below.

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