"The Signalman" is a British television short film from 1976, so this one had its 40th anniversary already last year. It runs for 38 minutes and was directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark. But the names of the writers are probably more known as there is Charles Dickens who came up with the original material and Andrew Davies came up with the script. Davies made headlines not too long ago when he scored Emmy nominations for his work on "House of Cards" and back in 1976 he had already been in the industry for a decade, so if you check out his body of work you will see that he is still enjoying a truly special career with many well-known titles. This one we have here mostly lives through the atmospheric take I guess and the actors are solid too, even if I hope that this is not a career-best achievement for any of them. Probably not because the small cast even includes an Oscar nominee (not yet back then). However, in terms of the story or the way it was executed, I would not say it was a success unfortunately. Something is missing. It is not an interesting character study and as a horror film it comes short in terms of creepiness unfortunately. So it is a bit of everything, but not really enough of anything. I give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.
Review of The Signalman
