I love this movie so much

To me, this movie is perfection.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The Tractate Middoth is one of James's weaker stories and although I was looking forward to a recent adaptation of his work I was surprised that this was the story Gatiss chose.Unfortunately, despite really wanting to like this, I found it absolutely dreadful. I really thought Gatiss would come up with something good but the whole thing reeked of a student production. The acting was horrid by everyone involved other than the lead and the way it was directed was very poor, significantly the end sequence with the ghost. The whole thing felt like a horrible cliché with no thought given to atmosphere or originality. The open-ending was just pure cheese. I also really wish Gatiss hadn't shown us the face of the ghost as it was totally ineffectual.I think if a 10 year old happened to watch this they might have found it enjoyable and grow up with vague fond memories of a ghostly short film at Christmas time (when it was screened) only to seek it out in adulthood and be eminently disappointed.A good example of how James's work should be adapted is Whistle and I'll Come To You from 1968, which is a fabulous, atmospheric, well made short film. And of course there is the brilliant Night of the Demon (1957). The Tractate Middoth pales in comparison.

The BBC continued its Christmas Day tradition of adapting a ghost story by the celebrated master of the genre MR James to add a little spice and ice to the seasonal festivities. Unlike last year's "Whistle And I'll Come To You", this tale wasn't brought fully up to date instead finding itself attractively moved forward to a post-war time-span where crucially for the plot, libraries and the cataloguing of books were still important and commonplace occurrences.I purposely read the source story immediately before I watched the programme and bar the time-change, the addition of a pipe-smoking crony of central character, earnest young student / part-time librarian Garrett to no doubt help with plot exposition, a further visitation by the horror-entity on a train journey and its suggested ominous reappearance in the final scene (the story ends happily in the original), was pleased to see some adherence to the original tale.I liked the use of dust-flecked air to suggest the horror's presence, less so the slow-motion depiction of the thing itself. The set design was excellent throughout, particularly the library scenes and if the acting by some of the supporting actors was a little too melodramatic, the leads acquitted themselves better by playing it straight and simple.The original story itself doesn't really stand up to much scrutiny anyway, the malevolence of the twisted priest against his surviving nephew and niece never properly explained but that's hardly the fault of writer/director Mark Gatiss who otherwise does a good job here in continuing the BBC tradition of bringing to light these slight but atmospheric and intriguing tales of ghosts and ghouls from a bygone age.

From actor, writer and director Mark Gatiss is an adaptation of a short ghost story from M R James whose previous ghost stories used to be a staple at BBC adaptations in the 1970s around Christmas.Gatiss better known as a performer with The League of Gentlemen and as writer on Doctor Who and Sherlock is an aficionado on horror and Victorian literature.This is short simple, spooky tale. It has very little by way of tricks or fancy visual gimmicks. You have familiar British stalwarts from Roy Barraclough, Una Stubbs to John Castle with Sacha Dawan playing an earnest Librarian in 1950s set Oxbridge whose disposition gets rather nervous after a spectral encounter when looking for a book in Hebrew.Some might find the adaptation flat or uninspiring but it misses the point. Its a throwback to the old days when you had a plain ghost story told in a straightforward manner and still provides a few chills.

During the Seventies the BBC made a habit of broadcasting A GHOST STORY FOR Christmas, mostly written by M. R. James and directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark. This continued a tradition established by James himself, who initiated precisely the same ritual during his lifetime as he read out a newly-created story each Christmas to his intimate circle of friends. Directed and adapted by Mark Gatiss, THE TRACTATE MIDDOTH revives that tradition; it concerns Garrett, a young librarian (Sacha Dhawan) who works at an Oxbridge college and is asked by elderly user John Eldred (John Castle) to locate a book, "The Tractate Middoth." This book appears to have been taken by a mysterious borrower who turns out to be a rotting ghost. Garrett encounters this specter and is thereby unwittingly drawn into a dark family story of resentment and revenge. Gatiss' adaptation updates the material to the Fifties, which enables him to create a thriller in the style of the MAN IN BLACK series (which Gatiss revived on radio) or the Edgar Lustgarten mysteries for Merton Park Studios. The adaptation establishes a sense of security through the presence of familiar elements - notably the Oxbridge locations, and the presence among the cast of stalwart character actors such as Roy Barraclough, David Ryall and Una Stubbs. As the action progresses, this sense of familiarity is gradually dismantled, culminating in a violent denouement. We are left in no doubt what will happen, but Gatiss stages it in an unexpected manner in the middle of a rural clearing on what looks like a fine late summer's day. The adaptation contains some notable cameos - for example Barraclough as a librarian insisting on absolute silence in his premises (even though there doesn't seem to be anyone there apart from Garrett and his friend George Earle (Nicholas Burns); and Castle's John Eldred, whose increasing anxiety is suggested by his breathless delivery.