The Secret of Crickley Hall Online

I like a good ghost story and this BBC dramatisation of a James Herbert novel (which I've not read) made for entertaining if far-fetched viewing. Spread over three hour-long episodes, I imagine gave the serial time to stay closer to the novel and to be fair I didn't notice a lot of unnecessary padding.

Set in two different time-frames, one set in the present day with a young family trying to get over the apparent loss of their beloved young son, the other telling the more interesting story of a sadistic brother and child-abusing sister who run an oxymoronic "safe home" for young evacuee children during the Second World War, whose methods are challenged by a game young teacher who comes into their employ. The two stories converge when the modern family unaccountably pick the spookiest house in the country to recuperate from their loss, with the mother and her two other young children apparently seeing and hearing the presence of the young children murdered 70 years ago and the former believing that the ghosts might be able to contact her missing son.

As I've indicated, it's probably best to pop a few massive coincidence pills in before watching and while some confusion inevitably enters the narrative, it coheres well enough to engage me through three Sundays in a row. The actors put the hokum across pretty well as a group with special mention going to Olivia Cooke as Nancy Linnet, the defiant young teacher who braves the dastardly brother and sister at risk of her own career and indeed life. Douglas Henshall also makes for a creepy "Whacko" villain, who fetishistically notes down every beating he gives out and demands one more victim in return for the one that got away.

The special effects were okay, more about suggestion which is usually the best way in programmes like this with no cliché unturned (subjective camera shots, pouring rain, dark sets, voluminous background music at key moments) and of course there's an impossible rescue of the daughter by her father, but if you're watching this as a study in realism then think again.

I've watched more realistic and scarier ghost stories than this but this twin-spook story engaged me reasonably even if at no stage was I tempted to hide behind my sofa or even peek through my fingers at any point during it.

The core of any good story is the story, and this little treasure packs a WALLOP. The Secret of Crickley Hall is, firstly, a drama for people who like to read. There are certainly ghosts, but the story is what will invest you in these characters, not its special effects, so be prepared to carve out a block of time to see the series complete and uninterrupted. Like any good book, I couldn't put it down.

There isn't just one story here, and so the multiple plot lines converge with devastating — and at times, shocking — effect as the story takes unexpected twists and turns you couldn't possibly have seen coming.

Based on James Herbert's best selling novel, The Secret of Crickley Hall is so well written, cast & produced, I've given it 8 stars _and_ a review (rare for me). Bravo.

I was enticed from the moment I saw the eerie opening credits. I can't fault this series, every minute I was gripped with a new twist, amazing performances and a remarkable story line. Although some twists were cliché; you can easily forgive and forget, thanks to something new and exciting happening within the next minute.

I read in a bio that the series was classed as a "drama", and a drama indeed it was. If you were expecting a gory horror I'd turn away now. As this series should be engaged with the expectations of a great story line drama... Even if the series still managed to spook me in parts and have me on the edge of my seat nearly all the way through.

The story line was truly captivating. The juxtaposition was easy to follow and fun to see a new time period.

The only reason for me not rating the series a '10' is simply because I wanted to know a little more about the boy, for which the bio of the series stated was one of the main focus points.

A must watch for everyone!

I have read the book and this is the best adaptation of a James Herbert novel yet. The first episode is the scariest - lots of ghost story clichés, but they are effective. The music, the darkness, the doors, the well & the cane especially. The casting is perfect, especially Douglas Henshall as the insane Augustus & Sarah Smart as his cruel sister, Magda. There is a change to the ending. (Stefan dies horribly in the book, but in a way that is too offensive to show.)The couple coping with the loss of their child are sympathetic and your heart goes out to every young victim and their champions. While the cruelty and child loss scenes have been handled with care, some viewers may be upset. Be warned that there is a lot more of it in the book, plus nudity.

Just found this on Amazon Prime. I'd never heard of it before.

For those sensitive to child abuse (and who isn't) there's a big chance for triggering, here.

But for the rest of the story, and the many mysteries that slowly unravel and unfold, it's just marvelous. Wonderfully cast, filmed, and acted. The pace isn't rapid but it's not tediously slow, either. It is definitely one to be binge-watched in a big 3 hour session, but it's only slightly longer than a full-length film so that shouldn't be too difficult.

Did I mention the wonderful cast?

It's not a high-brow think piece, but it is what it is, and for that it's definitely fun. I really enjoyed it. If you sit back and just decide to enjoy an old-style ghost story with romance and danger and sad, sorrowful events (and just a little bit of redemption and joy), you should have a good time.

I saw the advert for this three part drama, based on the book by James Herbert (The Fog), and thought it looked like an interesting watch, and two or three recognisable faces in the cast, so eventually I started watching. Basically a year has passed since young Cam Caleigh (Elliot Kerley) went missing and life for his London based family has not been the same since, and with this anniversary coming up, and with a short contract in the North of England, mother and wife Eve (Suranne Jones) agrees with father and husband Gabe Caleigh (Tom Ellis) to move for a while, with teenage daughter Loren (Maisie Williams), to a house in the country. They arrive at Crickley Hall, a large estate past the village of Devil's Cleave, the family hopes the time away can heal their relationship and grieving, but it seems that the hall is not the right place to be, as it has a dark past and possibly unwanted inhabitants. Through flashbacks to 1943 we see Crickley Hall was formerly an orphanage run by Augustus Cribben (Douglas Henshall) and his sister Magda (Sarah Smart), but all the children living there lived in fear or the people running the place, especially Augustus because he was highly brutal beating many of them, and new tutor Nancy Linnet (Olivia Cooke) was appalled by it. Nancy tried to help the children get away from the abuse, and young Percy Judd (Iain De Caestecker) tried to help her as much as he could to stop it or report to the police or whatever, but she could have not have counted on a young man helping Augustus to murder her and throw her body down the well under the hall. Back in present day, the ghosts haunting the estate are causing Eve especially stress and paranoia; she believes the spirits are trying to tell her that Cam is still alive and she is desperate to find him at last, Gabe is obviously trying to convince her she is wrong, despite him and Loren encountering strange things themselves. We also see some of the people from or knowing about Crickley Hall at the time have grown older and are still living in the village, including former grounds keeper Percy Judd (David Warner) who still suffers the bad memories, psychic medium Lili Peel (Susan Lynch) who may be able to summon or talk to the spirits, elderly Magda (Annie Kelly) surviving sister of Augustus, and parapsychologist Gordon Pyke (Donald Sumpter) who is eventually revealed to be the boy who pushed Nancy down the well after her murder. The cast all do their parts well, with Jones being the typical female victim of trauma, Ellis being the sense of reason without any belief, and the appearance of The Omen star Warner is welcome, the story is interesting enough to keep you watching, I was hoping to be shocked or freaked out, but it was creepy certainly, and even though the son is discovered dead in the end there is still the tension before the final conclusion, an alright supernatural drama short series. Good!

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Gabe (Tom Ellis) and Eve Caleigh (Suranne Jones) re-locate to the West Country from London a year after the disappearance of their son. They set up home in Crickley Hall, an old residence that used to be a boarding house for evacuees during the war. But it is this fact that holds the secret behind some ghostly hauntings, and a terrifying truth behind what now possesses them.

It seems that in the case of a fairly lengthy novel, the format best favoured in many cases for adaptation is to turn it in to a serial drama rather than go all out and just make a feature length adaptation, which may test the viewer's endurance. But Joe Ahearne's approach, with his adaptation of James Herbert's The Secret of Crickley Hall, somehow manages to do this anyway, over the course of three episodes shown over three weeks.

There's no doubt the first part opens well, establishing an effective atmosphere and air of suspense, which even someone who's already read the novel and pretty much knows what is going to happen can see. But somehow, even by the second episode that AOS doesn't feel as strong. Spacing each episode out over the course of a week probably doesn't help, dragging it out too long and doing the opposite of keeping you in suspense. Aside from this, certain segments inevitably get lost in translation going from novel to film, and the constraints of being a TV film inevitably creep through. I said 'inevitably' twice in that sentence, and that's sadly what an adaptation of a novel is always going to be: an inevitability. Something that is doomed not to be as good as it's source material from the start, even if it has a bigger budget and goes to theatres, where I think this may have worked better.

The performances are probably the best thing in it. Jones shows promise she may be more than another ex Corrie actress, avoiding a future in panto or cheap reality shows, showing an emotional intensity and depth as a mother wrapped up in guilt for the loss of her boy. Ellis isn't bad, but somehow isn't quite as good, except in certain scenes where his character really gets dealt a heavy blow. Douglas Henshall has an undeniable presence as the villain, but his accent is so thick it's sometimes really hard to understand what he's saying. He's at his most unnerving in quieter, more subtle moments, like when he's holding the little boy over the well or is nearly caught whacking him with a cane in his private room.

It's all too well made and sincere to even verge in to Sunday Night territory, and even Herbert himself said he thought it was pretty good. If only the whole thing had stuck together more solidly, and not come off so naff compared to the book. ***

The Secret of Crickley Hall

This ghost story from beyond the pond toggles regularly and frequently, without notice, across the pale between Then and Now. (Mixed idioms are intentional.)

Then is at a private orphanage in 1943 Devon, at a time when children were bused from London to escape The Blitz. Primeval's Douglas Henshall plays the evil headmaster.

We start out, however, in the Now. Mother ("Eve Caleigh", played by Suranne Jones) and her five-year old Son have a special, even psychic, connection. Son disappears from the playground when Mother falls momentarily asleep. Mother is disconsolate for months thereafter.

Approaching the one-year anniversary of Son's disappearance, Father ("Gabe Caleigh", played by Tom Ellis) gets a job out west (in the aforementioned Devon of the novel), and the family takes the opportunity to move, in hopes of escaping the sad memories at home. The house they choose is the now-abandoned orphanage of Then; and Now, of course, it's haunted…by ghosts of children and staff who died in a long-ago "flood".

(The couple have two other children, both girls, one preschool; and the school bus which collects the older one for classes is labeled, "Manchester", per the location of filming.)

Once ensconced in the haunted house, Mother finds and reassembles a screw-driven toy top – like one I had as a child, but mine was less fancy than the one used here – and she uses it to reconnect psychically with her lost son, believing him to be still alive. From here, she employs extraordinary means to find him, beset all the while by Henshall's haunting.

This U.K. miniseries is an enjoyable Halloween treat, and I was happy to be able to watch the entire thing as a three-hour TV movie on BBC America the day before its scheduled U.K. broadcast.

(Note: This review is dated October 29 in my files, indicating the original scheduled airing in the U.K. It was not yet available for voting on IMDb then, hence my tardiness in submitting this review. December dates on previous reviews suggest that the U.K. presentation may have been delayed a month beyond the original scheduling.)

This is a BBC made for TV mini series. It is a heart felt ghost story. Cam (Elliot Kerley) and his mom Eve (Suranne Jones) have a special relationship in that they share dreams and sometimes thoughts. Eleven months after Cam goes missing the family goes on a retreat to remote Crickley Hall, an old large home that was used as an orphanage for London orphans during WWII.

The house if filled with the ghosts of children and the graveyard shows us many died in 1943. The film smartly moves between a plot and subplot that takes place in 1943. It is a slow burner, but keeps you engaged. It is not a scary ghost story. No real horror

I purposely hadn't watched this series, based on the mainly negative reviews I'd read, but a dark miserable wet day and it went on, if I wasn't miserable enough before, I certainly was about fifteen minutes into this. The story itself is dark and disturbing, but the way in which it was produced it was overly macabre and grim. An very good opening episode, a sound second, and a rather disappointing conclusion. It all fell apart a little at the end. The best thing that can be said about this drama is the acting, it is fantastically well acted, Suranne Jones, Tom Ellis, David Warner, Sarah Smart etc all really good, Douglas Henshall is great as the creepy Augustus Cribben, but it's the wonderful Olivia Cooke that gave the most endearing performance as Nancy Linnet, she was great.

Worth a watch I guess, but if you've read it I fear you may be a little disappointed in it. 6/10

Kudos once again to the BBC for another good, old-fashioned ghost story. This one was a great tale with quite a few truly unlikable characters and well written, directed and some top-notch acting.

Was pretty good until the end was a bit cheesy. The plot was decent but there wasn't much mystery to it.

This three part drama is problematic in that we have to sort of wade through the first two episodes to get to a stunning third episode. I know...sometimes you've got to build toward a riveting climax. But there was a little too much building here over two episodes. In fact, at one point in the first episode, I nearly turned it off. But I stuck with it and was ultimately very pleased with the overall production. It was years ago that I read several of James Herbert, and I was particularly impressed with "The Magic Cottage". But I lost track of Herbert and his novels. So I was delighted to find this short series on Amazon Prime.

I'm not going to give away the plot, except to say that you have a story based on cruelty to children and an ultimate "coming home" (in a sense) ending. Not a totally happy ending at all, but a reasonable one based on the story.

As an American, I was only familiar with one actor here -- David Warner. And Warner was excellent here. He's really quite accomplished. But the one that really caught my attention was Donald Sumter, who we don't meet (well sort of don't meet) until the third episode. A stunning performance. The remainder of the performances range from good to very good.

I'm one of those movie goers who likes old fashioned ghost/horror stories...and this is one. Highly recommended.

Someone once said of Frank Sinatra that he would do anything for money. I can only assume that this description applies to the group of mainly excellent actors who performed in this grubby little story.

The rather tenuous connection between the loss of her own child apparently set off the sequence of events that took us back to the grisly happening in Crickley Hall many years ago. Flashbacks were on the whole handled clumsily, the supposed frightening occurrences were mostly ridiculous, rather than frightening (as I assume they were supposed to be) and it became increasingly difficult to understand who was who (in both the past and present). Although I now wish that I had followed my initial instinct and given up on it after the first episode, I stayed to the messy end and not for one moment did I feel scared/frightened (as I suppose the writers intended) - but disgusted that anyone should write such tripe (presumably for entertainment's sake). When it was over I was left with the thought that at least it kept people in work - but I would have very much liked to see their talents deployed elsewhere.

Usually Mystery Drama/Thrillers like this that are aired on the BBC are slow, boring, drawn out affairs, but this is actually a pretty good mini-series. I mean there's nothing spectacular about it, but it does keep you watching with interest.

Also with it being a BBC TV program there's obviously not going to be anything too graphic about it, like blood or very heavy scares so you need to keep that in mind if you decide to watch it as it MAY be a bit disappointing if you were expecting any of that.

Be prepared for it being a wee bit slow for the first couple of episodes as well, but it's not a boring kind of slow. It's a slower pace, but it builds everything up pretty nicely for the third and final episode where everything comes to a head.

You also have to pay attention to it as well because it jumps back and forth a lot from present time to 1943. I mean it's obvious when it happens but with it being constantly back and forth all the time you do still need to watch closely to follow both the story lines.

The series is well played out by the cast, but the character of Eve Caleigh (played by Suranne Jones) did grate on my nerves a bit. I understand she's a mother who wasn't giving up hope of finding her son, even a year on from his disappearance, but some of her actions just rubbed me the wrong way. Douglas Henshall did a fine job playing the part of Augustus Cribben, the uncaring and heartless owner (along with his sister, Magda) of the orphanage, and a person who you never feel any sympathy for.

Overall, this is a pretty enjoyable series to watch and one I'd recommend giving a go, especially if you enjoy a bit more of a subtle approach to your Supernatural movies.

I have not read the book, but did see in reviews that the little daughter is named Callie. The family name is Caleigh. Is there a reason for that repeated name?

I liked the series, but I also thought it was a bit improbable--maybe that's what the genre calls for.

I did appreciate that the parents were supportive of each other after losing a child. Also, why did they show the little boy being carried off and, at the conclusion, learn that he drowned. There was no real resolution that he was abducted and who did this.

While I am complaining, the rescue scene with the father running all over the place did create tension, but it was quite over the top, I thought.

The Secret of Crickley Hall is a clichéd but creepy Haunted House story.

Eve (Suranne Jones) and her husband Gabe (Tom Ellis) to move to a house in the country with teenage daughter Loren (Maisie Williams) for a short time some months after their young son went missing.

Crickley Hall past the village of Devil's Cleave harbours its own secrets. An orphanage in the past, we learn via flashbacks to 1943 when it was run by the cruel and sadistic Augustus Cribben (Douglas Henshall) and his sister Magda (Sarah Smart). The orphans lived in dread.

Eve hopes that Crickley Hall will heal their grieving but its dark past brings it own haunts and there is a malevolent presence.

The opening episode certainly showed a lot of promise and creepiness but the subsequent episodes started to get silly and the plot more hokey. Suranne Jones is very effective as the grieving mother and there was a lot of melancholy with the climax but the series never excelled.

Being a James Herbert fan I'd read this book many years ago and enjoyed it. This mini series only serves to disappoint. The jumping between two different time periods becomes confusing and tiresome and the story crawls along at a snails pace. Suranne Jones although acting well becomes annoying and repetitive as the grieving mother. Some parts have been altered from the book which I find most infuriating....if you're going to adapt a book, do it faithfully or not at all. If you're really bored and have nothing else to do it passes the time easily enough but not for true horror fans.

THE SECRET OF CRICKLEY HALL is a three-part miniseries made by the BBC and broadcast on BBC1 in November 2012. Sadly, like with other recent literary adaptations (GREAT EXPECTATIONS and THE TURN OF THE SCREW for example), this seems to be a missed opportunity, merely going through the motions rather than trying hard to pass as quality drama.

I'm a fan of James Herbert, although I haven't read the particular novel this adaptation is based upon, so I can't comment on it. However, this miniseries covers very familiar 'haunted house' territory, jutting between modern-day family woes and a story involving an orphanage in WW2-era Britain.

The story fails to work very well because none of the actors seem very convinced in what they're doing. Suranne Jones bags the meatiest role of the grieving mother but I never felt much sympathy for her character's plight, indeed she's rather uninteresting when it comes down to it. The producers try hard to build interest by casting seasoned performers in supporting parts (Donald Sumpter, David Warner, Susan Lynch, GAME OF THRONES' Maisie Williams) but none of them contribute their best work.

The three hour running time means that much of the storyline is repetitive; there are only one or two incidents that occur in the 'past' storyline yet the child abuse stuff is repeated over and over again for lengthy stretches; not even a hamming Douglas Henshall can save it. The modern-day stuff is littered with plot holes and the ghostly stuff is silly and slightly twee rather than genuinely haunting.

A missed opportunity then - a shame, because once again it could have been great had more care between taken with the quality of the script and performances of the cast.

This mini series is quite bad. Bad in the sense of poorly written and produced. The cast do their best, but it's like watching the Famous Five Go Mad At Crinkley (Village) Hall. Some fine acting talent struggling away in there, but it totally fails to engage or captivate. Really only watched it to the end because it was nearly bedtime and I couldn't be bothered to find anything else. Maisie Williams was the saving grace, really...

Shows like this are hard to find. When we do find them they are too often cheesy and ridiculous. The Secret of Crickley Hall is anything but. This was a wonderful show about an old house in the north of England. It takes place both in modern times and in 1943.

After having their son go missing, a family moves to this old estate for a few months hoping to deal with their loss. Unfortunately, the house has a lot of secrets of its own...secrets that need to come out.

Shows like this should be made more often. This was atmospheric - especially the first episode - it was tragic and haunting, and it was emotional. Anytime you have ghostly goings-on in an large, old, creepy house in England, you know you're heading in the right direction.

This is an actual ghost story, but it's very well done. It's not cheesy, it's not hokey. It allows you to meld into the story, you feel their pain and frustration as well as their emotional rollercoaster dealing not only with their missing son but the tragedies of the past that they begin to uncover.

I wish there were more shows like this. Ignore the bad reviews, they probably come from people who read the book and think this isn't a perfect representation. Fortunately, I haven't yet read the book so my viewpoint isn't tainted.

This is an appalling BBC mini-series, commissioned by the usual oafs and morons there who are overpaid and 'outtacontrol'. The series concerns the savage physical abuse of children by sadists. Really, is there no limit to the perversities shown on the BBC these days? This series should absolutely not have been made. It is offensive and revolting. I will however compliment the performance of the young actress Olivia Cooke, who plays the character Nancy, and hope that she never has to appear in anything as terrible as this series ever again. Some of the casting is however so uninspired that some of the bad talent to be seen in this series was appropriately dumped into this rubbish bin.

Now the series made many changes to the original book including minor ones such as the family dog was called Chester and not Clyde, but why change the ending so that Nancy fancies Augustus? She detests him and that never happened in the book. Also, Stefan was supposed to have been killed by Augustus, the BBC instead decided he should go on until October 2009. Now i know that in the book Augustus was supposed to have chopped of Stefan's private parts and caused him to bleed to death but the BBC could have just depicted Stefan being hit to death. Why change such a big detail? It made the story worse! The series was fantastic but I must say that the ending just made it undignified. Such a shame as I thoroughly enjoyed the story until then.