Very best movie i ever watch

Too much of everything

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

I've been wanting to see this for so long, and at last a DVD release. The Seventies were a bit of a purple patch for fans of Ghost stories, who doesn't love a ghost story, and why are we starved of them now?I watched the Stone Tape and enjoyed from start to finish, a story one could argue that was somewhat ahead of its time. The whole concept of computers, communication and using such a medium to contact the dead was very cleverly written, as I say ahead of its time. I kept watching it and being reminded of the Woman in Black, the scares, the screams and shock ending etc.Jane Asher was brilliant as Jane, I truly believed her torment throughout, the opening scene with the two lorries was also very cleverly done. Michael Bryant (Of course brilliant) and Ian Cuthbertson never fail to disappoint, and both are great here. Only Reginald Marsh is poor here, maybe the character, or over the top appearance, or both, jut plain irritated me.A must watch for fans of 70's drama and ghost stories 8/10

My years at IMDb have not been in vain and if I have been taught one thing by fellow user Theo Robertson, then it is that I should give Nigel Kneale a bit of my time when the chance arises. So it was that I found myself watching this film, one I knew absolutely nothing about apart from that it was some form of ghost story and that it had been written by Kneale. The plot sees an electronics firm moving into an old Victorian building to start a project looking at a new recording method that is beyond tape (utter sci-fi of course). When one of the team spots a ghost, project leader Peter Brock decides to investigate and more.From the very start of the film one of the main barriers to it is evident – it has not aged well. It is true to say that good stories do not age, however this is not the same as presentation, performances, wardrobe, effects, dialect and so on – mostly these things do date and not well. Sometimes the dating effect means it can be unintentionally comic to those watching years later, having seen these things many times and be spoofed as well; so for example the visual effects to convey panic and fear in Jill in the opening scene in the car park is a little bit like this and it is a problem that it never wholly will get away from for many viewers. That said, the material mostly doesn't date and the ideas are well presented, interesting and a little bit spooky – they didn't chill me as much as I had wanted but again this was down to most of the scenes on this side of the film using dated special effects where I would have preferred more to have been done with atmosphere and tone (as was the case in the more effective parts of the film).The cast are a little bit BBC-workshopy. Bryant tends to project and I wasn't helped by how much he reminded me of John Sessions in terms of performance and looks. Asher is better which is good as she has more convincing to do – visual and camera effects aside, she is really good here. The supporting cast are mostly so-so, with some odd performances and characters. One thing common amongst all the characters was the very dated language – a lot of it surprisingly racist in regards put-on accents and sentiments; I understand that it is "of its time" but again this is one aspect of the "dating" that was a barrier to me watching it over 40 years later.Despite the problems with it, the ideas and atmosphere just about make it all stay together and work. It isn't as good as it should have been and it is impossible to say that the dating of the film has had no impact on its effectiveness, but it is still decent enough to be worth a look.

WARNING - ACUTE SPOILERSA team of free-marketeering research scientists move into their new R&D premises: an old English mansion house. Before they have even unpacked their equipment, the ghostly, shrieking apparition of a long-dead chambermaid besets them. The scientists' curiosity overcomes their fear and they set out to investigate. They discover that the phenomenon has a hard-science explanation; the "impressions" of past occupants have been recorded in the very stones of the house. These "mineral recording" are triggered by the emotional stimulus of anyone whom enters their vicinity. The scientists realise that a new and highly lucrative recording medium has been discovered. However, a particularly psychic-sensitive member of the group delves deeper into the mystery and discovers that the stones hold an even more ancient and deadly "recording".After watching The Stone Tape again after a gap of thirty years, I realised that I had just revisited an old friend. Friend or perhaps foe because my first encounter with it, age six, left me with lingering nightmares of which I had long forgotten the source. But looking again at this play left me in no doubt. I had found the culprit!Many regard "The Stone Tape" as Nigel Kneale's finest achievement, although that accolade is perhaps more rightfully retained by the Quatermass stories. However, this television play from 1972 is an outstanding piece of work that bristles with ideas, urgency and passion. It's typical Kneale in that respect. It also revisits one of the author's strongest conceits; that inhuman evil can invade our planet from both the skies above and the earth below. The nature of the evil in The Stone Tape is never explained. That's no cop-out. It's a device which gives the play the unbreakable logic of a nightmare. Perhaps these creatures are an unimaginable life-form from Earth's primeval past. Who knows? They are simply THERE.Another Kneale preoccupation, swinish, over-bearing authority figures, gets a good going-over here in the form of Brock, the head of the research team. Brock is a grade-A b****rd: driven, driving, callous, greedy for power and glory. A sociopath in other words, but the stuff of great corporate cultures nonetheless. He is also, as Kneale himself pointed out, a very weak man whose arrogance hides his fear of failure and blinds him to the truth.As with other Kneale works, the foil to this dangerous ambition is a more humane and sensitive figure, in this instance Jill Greely, a computer programmer. Her emotional compassion is matched by her psychic sensitivity, both of which are abused unto death by Brock and the dark forces within the house. In Kneale's book, good guys and gals finish last but always to the cost of wider humanity. Will we never learn?The Stone Tape is very ably directed by Peter Sasdy, a director more closely associated with the same period's Hammer films. Thankfully, the (tedious in my opinion) gothic Hammer house-style is largely absent here. Instead, Sasdy opts for a brisk but imaginative approach more in keeping with Kneale's writing.The performers give their monies worth. Michael Bryant portrays Brock with the necessary viciousness and energy. Bryant was a very familiar face on British television in the seventies. I remember him being a quite subtle actor. Here, however, he gets the bit between his teeth and gnaws. Perhaps a tad too much. He certainly makes Kneale's point though. The real acting revelation is Jane Asher's portrayal of Jill. Asher is now something of a celebrity TV chef and soap star, but in this production she shows an amazing grasp of character that goes some way to fill a few motivational gaps in Jill as written. Bravo, Ms Asher!Today, audiences starved of quality drama are brainwashed into thinking that a bucket-load of CGI effects will suffice. The Stone Tape had priceless writing and an effects budget of about ten pounds. But the effects work! In fact, as I watched the DVD recently, it was the effects that rekindled my childhood horror. The genuinely nightmarish scenes of Asher being chased up a set of stone stairs by a swarm of un-named, malevolent creatures hit me like a bullet. Swaying, shapeless green blobs with red, firefly eyes, and Asher's anguished struggle up those nasty stairs... only to fall, and fall, and fall... horrifying. I recalled almost nothing from the rest of the story except these images. And I remembered them PERFECTLY even as they replayed before my eyes. Memories and images can indeed lie dormant until the right stimulus awakens them. Nigel Kneale does it again!

"The Stone Tape" is a real oddity - how can a sci-fi/fantasy drama of this high standard go unnoticed for so long. Transmitted at Christmas in 1972 and repeated the following year, nothing has been seen of this classic piece of TV until earlier this year when the BFI released it on both video and DVD.Written by Quatermass scribe Nigel Kneale and directed by TV/film veteran Peter Sasdy, "The Stone Tape" is an example of all the elements working together to produce a masterpiece.In brief, the story concerns a group of scientists staying in a converted manor house to carry out research into a new recording medium to replace magnetic tape. One of the analysts, Jill Greely, has visions of a ghost in the one room of the house the workmen refused to renovate. The rest of the team then set about surveying this ghost and come to the conclusion that it is the stone of the room which has captured the image of the woman and the presence of certain receptive people, namely Jill, has triggered its playback, hence stone tape.This is a well written and well directed piece of fantasy drama mixing the right amount of moody lighting and music with Peter Bryant and Jane Asher's kitchen sink romance to create something instantly believable as well as disturbing.TV favourites such as Iain Cuthbertson and Tom Chadbon are present to make up the numbers in the impressive supporting cast.A spooky masterpiece - go and buy the video or if your budget will allow, the DVD for Nigel Kneale's interesting and revealing commentary.