User Reviews

The Delgado family Katherine, Peter and their daughter Verity, have just moved into a new country home very close to some Neolithic stones. As it would happen their plans for their lawn are on hold as there is a large stone blocking the area. Efforts to try and move it are proving futile, some local men using a JCB manage to budge it a little, but as Katherine watches on, a large breathtaking gust of wind emanates from beneath the stone, Katherine begins to act oddly as if in a stupor, this feeling passes quickly though and Katherine feels herself again. However while making dinner, she suddenly finds blood on her hand, she checks but she is not cut, then there is blood on her blouse, panicking she rushes upstairs to the bathroom and finds blood all over her torso, again though there is no wound? Katherine keeps these events to herself, but that night Peter awakes in their bed to the sound of dripping, Katherine and Verity both appear to be asleep, he hears murmurs and moans from downstairs, he goes and checks but finds nothing, although some objects do appear to have moved by themselves, Peter is bemused and returns to bed. The next morning the men are back with a large crane to remove the stone, beneath it they find skeletal remains, there are ceremonial daggers everywhere, the person appears to have been murdered. . Verity watches the men digging and comments that this kind of burial was one given to witches. Peter awakens to find Katherine in a large pool of blood, he panics, the local doctor is none the wiser, they both carry Katherine to the car and head to the hospital....

Stigma was the last time Clark directed in the Ghost Story for Christmas series of films, despite the fact that for the first time the traditional period setting for a ghost story has been abandoned, its still retains the Clark look we are used to, the quiet countryside still has that misty landscape painting look, it still seems to have a life of its own which adds to the overall atmosphere. Its no use saying the modern setting helps though, i'm a traditionalist and there really isn't any reason this story couldn't have had a period setting, its a pity it wasn't, maybe it was down to a budgetary restraint? Stigma like other films in the series, hints at ancient rites, primordial times and of things unknown, if you're looking for a film with a vacuous fully explained ending this is certainly not for you, this series of films gets the viewer thinking, they resonate in your head long after you have seen them, as the merest of plot points explodes in your imagination. Stigma will always suffer when compared to other Clark films, on its own though its a nice slice of British horror.

6/10

Stigma, the penultimate episode of the original series of A Ghost Story for Christmas, marked a turning point, as it the first based on an original screenplay and the last directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark. Written by Clive Exton, it is set in the present day and feels notably different in tone from its predecessors.

The story sees a family moving to the countryside and unleashing a curse when they decide to move an ancient stone monolith - part of a nearby stone circle - from the garden of their new home. From the moment the stone is first dislodged, wife and mother Katherine starts bleeding, initially from her hands and later from her torso, even though she has no visible wound. When the monolith is finally lifted free, the skeleton of a witch pierced by blades corresponding to the sites of Katherine's bleeding is revealed; the inevitable dark ending makes it clear that Katherine has paid the price for disturbing the family disturbing the witch's rest.

The modern day setting immediately makes Stigma stand apart from the M. R. James and Charles Dickens adaptations of the previous years, although its folk horror themes hardly divorce it from them entirely. The main problem with the episode is that it simply isn't as creepy as the rest of the series. Nevertheless, it isn't bad by any means, even if it is usually seen as the point at which A Ghost Story for Christmas lost its way. Kate Binchy gives a convincing performance as Katharine, who becomes increasingly frantic as she desperately examines her body for the source of the blood. So too does the great Peter Bowles as Peter, especially when he panics after finding his unresponsive wife in a pool of blood. Despite the short run time, the two main characters work well enough, although Maxine Gordon's vaguely rebellious teenager Verity remains undeveloped.

Importantly, it also benefits from Clark's flair for directing, one final time. As usual, he makes great use of starkly beautiful location filming (including the stone circle Avebury), and provides some memorable visuals: the shot of the picture cracking and the close-up of the fly all work really well. In Clark's hands, even a raw onion can seem strangely unnerving. The effect used to create the wind unleashed when the stone is lifted is coupled with haunting music and sound effects to eerie effect; the juxtaposition with the Rolling Stones' "Mother's Little Helper" is quite striking.

Stigma might not entirely capture the same atmosphere as the rest of A Ghost Story for Christmas, but its tale of unstoppable forces unleashed by those who dare to meddle in the English countryside and its dark ending mean it certainly sits alongside them fairly comfortably. It is also a respectable enough swansong for Lawrence Gordon Clark, whose work on the program is undoubtedly one of the main reasons both for its success and its enduring appeal. The following - and final - episode of the nineteen-seventies would see another director take over the reins, and the difference would prove to be immediately and painfully obvious.

STIGMA is the last of the BBC Ghost Story for Christmas series directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark. This time it's a modern-day tale, not based on a story by M.R. James but rather an original screenplay by Clive Exton, the hard-working screenwriter of 10 RILLINGTON PLACE among others. At half an hour in length this is a perfectly conjured-up story about how the decision to move an ancient stone in her garden proves ultimately fatal for a mother living in an old rural cottage. This TV movie is full of creepy atmosphere and subtle chills, and although there's much more blood and nudity than you normally see in this kind of thing, it has a reason for existing and is all part of the story. Kate Binchy gives an excellent and harrowing performance of an ordinary woman beset by nameless evil in the form of a psychic vampire or witch. STIGMA fits perfectly in the folk horror genre and sits alongside other classics of the genre such as BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW as one of the best of its kind.

"Stigma" is an English short film from 1977, so this one has its 40th anniversary this year. It was a small screen release and if you read the name of director Lawrence Gordon Clark, you possibly know already that this is another of his career-defining ghost stories for the Christmas holidays. These usually live more through quit subtle horror than big effects and even with another writer than usual working on this one (Clive Exton), the recipe stays the same. The makers as well as the cast (haven't heard of any of these actors) are all British of course and this is the story of what happens when a family moves to a new place and has some of the huge stone fragments being removed there. Apparently they disturb the peace of some ancient creature and consequences are pretty drastic. But while the non-gore approach is the one I usually prefer in horror films, I cannot say that this movie really ended up impressing me. It's one of the lesser known from the series for sure and I would say that it's okay because this one is not as good as the others. But honestly, the entire series did not make an impact on me at all. This is why I give this one, just like all the others I have seen (I think), a thumbs-down and I don't recommend checking it out. Unless you have seen and liked some of the installments from other years I say skip this one. Slightly over half an hour not worth seeing.

Between the 60s and 70s it was fashionable to adapt the best of the horror and ghost writers to TV, something to get your teeth into during the festive season. like The Ferryman, it depicts a couple in modern-day society living in a seemingly normal, everyday setting. from their rural, and very isolated, cottage home they hire a labour force to excavate and remove one of a number of lay stones from their garden. Buried beneath they discover some iron age burial site, containing a body and knives. soon strange things begin to affect their lives. Is it a haunting or just imagination running riot? This one scared the pants off of me as a kid, as the Ferryman and the Signalman had, and all those M R James' stories by the BBC did. I found that most of the series from that era has been unavailable in commercial form, this one, could only be viewed by a version containing a time lapse coded transmission. But have recently discovered a cleaned up version on the ghost stories for Christmas boxed set by BFI. No matter how old they are there's no comparison with current TV and film which lend heavily from these marvellous classics. Stigma keeps the mystery going throughout and keeps you cuddling up on the sofa, biting the snuggle blanket or your partner's shoulder with the suspense. I particularly like the female home owner when a patch of her skin haemorrhages slowly through the tiny pores like sweat. And she goes through the episode looking like an ashen faced zombie for the duration. worth a watch.

A short (30 minutes) film made for the BBC's A Ghost Story For Christmas series, Stigma is one of three non MR James adaptations and the first of two that broke with the tradition of adapting a classic ghostly tale. Instead we get an original slice of horror penned by screenwriter Clive Exton (who would later spend a period in Hollywood where he wrote Red Sonja), who turns in a passably creepy tale of a middle class family moving into a country cottage next door to an ancient stone circle (Avebury in Wiltshire, also used as the location in the ITV kids series Children of the Stones). When workmen attempt to move one of the stones located in their garden, an ancient curse is unleashed which causes the mother of the family to bleed uncontrollably before her body re-enacts the ritual execution of a witch , who was buried under the stone centuries earlier. Stigma tries hard to be an MR James story, but Exton's script is full of blood and nudity which at times make it feel like a David Cronenberg body horror rather than a subtle chiller. The whole affair is also let down by some poor acting, with lots of wooden performances and only Peter Bowles (a versatile actor better known as a mainstray of British television comedy) putting a decent shift in. You'll never look at an unpeeled onion in the same way again.