Whistle And I'll Come To You [1968] - Bfi Video Publishing

A Classic.

Remembered from many years ago
Creepy claustrophopic atmoshere still exists for me.
Subtle, quiet, spooky and interesting. Classic

superb

i love this short film! superb acting, you get drawn into the character and almost feel sorry for him to suffer his disbelief.
not one for new school shock film fans. but as mentiond above, the scare tactics appear hours after the films finished!
bbc1 have produced some terrific ghost films such as this, the woman in black and more of the m.r james collection. why stop now? very few ghost films have been done that are of any standard ,and i for one would love to see more been written to the brilliance of whistle and ill come to you and the woman in black.

Not for M.R. James Enthusiasts

I bought this after reading the M.R. James short story only to find that Jonathan Miller's production reflects very little of the original story or plot. This in itself is very disappointing especially as the terror and horror of the story is not really captured in the film - where is the "crumpled face of linen" - and leaves you pondering why the Michael Hordern character is acting the way he is especially given as there is none of the fine narrative in the story.

Not for the faint hearted, or intellectually challenged!

Slow, almost ponderous direction takes the viewer on a terrifying journey in which almost nothing actually happens, but that succeeds for those with the patience and imagination to interpret the subtleties of deft storytelling and expert film-making. Definitely will not appeal to people used to 'paint by numbers' horror films, where the audience are treated to a series of shlock 'scares'; (usually provided by a group of half naked, dumb American teeagers holidaying in a log cabin, in the middle of a forest inhabilted by a knife weilding nutcase with a penchant for slaughtering half naked, dumb American teenagers)... only for their intelligence to be further insulted by a patronising denoument in which an already contrived storyline is explained in detail.

This film exists on a different level, where it sits in limited, but priviledged company with that rarest of beasts - the 'Genuinely' creepy horror film. The lack of dialogue, action, special effects, music, half naked dumb American teenagers etc etc makes for a refreshingly unique and deeply disturbing study of lonliness that climaxes in a truly disturibing series of images; (and sounds) that stay with the viewer long after the end titles roll. I originally saw this on BBC 1 when I was 16... and I've never looked at a blanket the same way since!
Any fans of modern Asian horror will appreciate this film, and recogonise that much of the so called 'modern' (and lauded) technique of slowburn atmospherics owes more than a passing nod to this truly chilling classic.

Unforgettable

The story - the haunting of a Cambridge academic who doesn't believe in ghosts - is one of M.R. James's better short stories, and as such Dr Miller's film has been criticised as not being 'faithful'. This hardly matters; the story is there to be read. The divergences, in fact, are not that material; if anything the film version suffers from the principal weakness of the original, indeed of many MRJ's stories:
too many high table in jokes.
This is a masterclass in filming, editing, sound and acting. No order here, as each is essential to the whole. And what is that whole. What makes this film special, unique?
It accurately recreates the horror of nightmare.