Movie Details
| Title: | The Stone Tape | |
| Director: | Peter Sasdy | |
| Year: | 1972 | |
| Genre: | Ghost | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 10.26.24 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 10.26.24 | Internet | Well I caught a cold. Since the pandemic I think I've been sick 3 times. I very much enjoy not being sick, so this sucks. At least the test says it's not covid or the flu but I've got a hell of a cough. So I played Factorio all day until my head got to killing me so I switched over to movies. This is an early TVs British TV movie most notable for the script by Nigel Kneale of Quatermass and the Pit fame. If I'm being honest, I didn't choose this film but a twitch streamer that I enjoy watched it on his stream with frequent pausing to pontificate on random stuff. He's an Anglophile so it was a bit like watching the movie with an amateur commentary track on, but that's fine because the TV-movie nature of this film didn't exactly demand my full attention. The deal with this one is that a tech company full of early computer nerds conducts research in an old mansion and sees a ghost. Like typical nerds, they decided to do research on it and conduct experiments and whatnot, not letting the supernatural element stand in the way of their hubris, I mean confidence in the scientific method. So It's kinda like a precursor to Carpenter's Prince of Darkness or that scene from Poltergeist where the scientists capture an apparition with their gear. It was a fun enough way to spend a couple hours, but I do think it really felt like a TV movie rather than a theatrical film. Quite a lot of talking, really, but there were a few scenes with some charming optical effects that lent it some spookiness as well as a bit of experimentalism with the sound design. Lots of machinery sounds and repeated screams... over and over and over. Mostly talking though. It didn't quite have a filmed play vibe due to the location stuff in the old mansion but I'm not surprised it was remade as an audio-play in the 2010s. Not bad! |
