This was actually the first offering from the BBC One series A Ghost Story for Christmas that I saw and it spooked the hell out of me when I was just a little weirdo. A traveller comes across a railway signalman (the wonderful Denholm Elliott) stationed at a lonely signal box between two steep sided hills close to the entrance of a train tunnel. When he waves and shouts his greetings, he’s taken aback as the railway worker seems to be panicked by his appearance. After assuring him there’s nothing to fear, he’s invited over to the signal box where the two lonesome men develop a friendship. Eventually, the operator shares a strange story about a specter haunting him that foretells calamity. Looking to aid his new friend, the traveller attempts to uncover a rational explanation for the poor man’s anxiety but the unknown cares little for rationality and tragedy usually follows this realization. A deliberately paced nightmare based on the Charles Dickens story of the same name, the first yearly outing from this lovely series to not be an adaption of an M.R. James chiller. It still hits hard, even in all the years that have passed since my first watch. Excellent, chilling and burned into my brain.
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