A Disappointing Continuation

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

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

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 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

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.