This hour-long comedy horror film was made for BBC Scotland and first broadcast on Halloween 2016 (the rest of the UK were able to see in on the iPlayer later that night). It was directed and co-written (with Donald McLeary) by Greg Hemphill, the star and creator of hit sketch show Chewin’ the Fat (1999-2005) and the even more successful sitcom Still Game (2002-2019). Avowed life-long horror fans, Hemphill and McLeary had already written the stage play An Appointment with The Wicker Man which had first been staged at the National Theatre of Scotland in 2012. Their love of the genre is evident throughout West Skerra Light which doesn’t break any new ground but with is nonetheless a rollicking horror spoof that tips its hat towards many a classic.

It opens with a spoof of the opening moments of John Carpenter’s The Fog (1980) as a curmudgeonly Gillespie (Lewis Howden) fails miserably to impress a group of cynical kids wit his tale of the malevolent supernatural presence that haunts the local lighthouse on the fictional island of Skerra (“he’s talking shite”). The tower is supposedly haunted by the ghost of Rhonda (Julie Wilson Nimmo) who threw herself from the lighthouse when her sister married the man she loved. That fact seems to have eluded a group of city folk who arrive on the island with a view to buying the lighthouse – Gregor (Lorne McFadyen) and his girlfriend Lana (Lorna Craig), bickering couple Bill (John Gordon Sinclair from Gregory’s Girl (1980) and more recently zombie epic World War Z (2013)) and Joan (Lorraine McIntosh, singer with pop band Deacon Blue) and Tom (John Michie from cop show Taggart (1983-2010)). The bodies soon pile up as Rhonda, missing an eye, most of her hair and most of her teeth, is spotted lurking in the fog…

In truth, it’s a fairly slight affair but the comedy is genuinely funny, the horror moments suitably creepy, Simon Vickery’s photography moody and sometimes even quite gorgeous – he’s helped immeasurably by the breath-taking coastline of Stranraer where the bulk of the filming took place (the nearby Corsewall Lighthouse “plays” the main location) – and the performances are a lot of fun, everyone eagerly entering into the spirit of the occasion.

Hemphill and McLeary clearly know their genre, and as well as The Fog you’ll find references to Japanese horror (a photo album of pictures with blurred faces) and possibly even that hoary old Brit-horror favourite Tower of Evil/The Horror of Snape Island (1972). Hemphill pulls off some great creepy scenes, notably a spooky late-night wander through the fog-shrouded woods that ends with a particularly well-timed shock, and his comedy roots are never far from the surface – a particularly silly bit of business towards the end with a failed firework attack (“it’s hellish!”) is a particular favourite.

There are faults to be found. The low budget means that occasionally the high definition video peeks through the film-look post-production processing and we perhaps get to see a bit much of Rhonda in the final act when keeping her in the shadows might have been a better move (though the make-up effects by Grant Mason, a robotics technician on Hardware (1990) with later credits on Sleepy Hollow (1999), The Wolfman (2010) and Doctor Who (2005-) are excellent.) But these are tiny nit-picks in an otherwise hugely enjoyable genre homage which, at a brisk 58 minutes manages to cram in an awful lot of goodness.

Hemphill and his team had big plans to follow West Skerra Light with more horror outings: “There’s loads of great stories,” Sinclair said at the time. “Greg’s a bit of a horror aficionado and is into that genre. I think it’s a great example of what can be done if the talent, and I’m talking about Greg, is given some space to do their own thing. It’ll all depend how well this one does.” Hemphill, McLeary, Sinclair, McIntosh, Michie and Wilson Nimmo were reunited two years later (with comedian Frankie Boyle thrown in for good measure) for a second, less fondly remembered bite of the cherry with Long Night at Blackstone (2018), about the crew of a paranormal television show facing cancellation staging one last investigation. Sadly, after that, plans to make a string of short horror films seem to have fallen by the wayside. Which is a shame, as West Skerra Light showed that the team were more than capable of delivering the good s and a series of these short, annual Halloween shockers would have been most welcome.