Back in the 1970s, when producer Lawrence Gordon Clark had wanted to adapt M.R. James’ 1904 story Count Magnus as part of his original run of the BBC’s annual A Ghost Story for Christmas strand, but had been thwarted by budgetary issues – the BBC had been reluctant to put up the money for an adaptation, presumably concerned about the cost of realising one of James’ few explicit moments, the image a handsome young man with the skin of his face torn from his skull. It’s a tough story to adapt, mostly un-visual (padlocks falling from a coffin notwithstanding), more reliant than ever on the power of James’ words and although a few have tried it in short film form, it remained un-adapted for television until 2022 when Mark Gatiss, who had taken over the Ghost Story for Christmas strand in 2013 with a version of The Tractate Middoth, finally got it before the cameras in October 2022 for broadcast on 23 December. “It’s the one I’ve always wanted to do,” Gatiss told SFX magazine of Count Magnus. “It’s a great story. Also, I knew it was the one that eluded Lawrence Gordon Clark – the reason The Signalman [1976] was made was because they couldn’t afford to do Count Magnus. So it’s always sort of been in the back of my mind.”

Gatiss, who also scripted, does a very good job of staying close to the original. James used the technique of a story being recounted by an unnamed narrator (his ghostly tales were originally meant to be read aloud at gatherings of friends, colleagues and students at King’s College, Cambridge on Christmas Eve) and so his stories don’t always naturally lend themselves to television adaptation without some rejigging, which Gatiss commendably keeps to a minimum. Englishman Mr Wraxall (a great performance from Jason Watkins) is a writer of travelogues touring Sweden. He arrives at the old family home of the de la Gardie family where he meets the current occupant Fröken de la Gardie (MyAnna Buring) and gets his first glimpse of the eponymous Count Magnus, her ancestor in a painting, in which his appearance echoes that of Sir Michael Sinclair (Jack Watson) in the Amicus anthology film From Beyond the Grave (1974), one of Gatiss’ favourite films. There are other tips of the hat too, towards Vampyr (1932) almost certainly, the James stories Number 13 and The Tractate Middoth (both already adapted by the BBC very likely) and at a pinch, de la Gardie’s mute, sign-language practising black servant (Jamal Ajala) might, just might, be a nod towards Roy Stewart’s character in Hammer’s Twins of Evil (1971) and even, if we’re feeling generous, Halloween (1978) (one of the apparitions is credited, as Michael Myers was, as “the shape.”)

In the local inn, Wroxall learns more about Magnus from the landlord (Max Bremer), that he was a cruel landowner who embarked on the mysterious Black Pilgrimage to the city of Chorazin (said to be where the Antichrist will be conceived) where he saluted “the Prince of the Air” before returning home with something… or someone. He also learns that of two men who went poaching at night on the Count’s lands, one went mad and the other had the skin sucked from his face. Despite all this, Wroxall becomes obsessed with Magnus, visiting his mausoleum where his tomb is sealed by chains held by three padlocks, one of which is unlocked. On subsequent visits, the other padlocks fall and Wroxall is terrified when the lid of the stone casket starts to move. He flees back to England, seeing strange figures along the way, one human (we assume Magnus), the other something very much else who follow him all the way to his hotel room in a remote village…

Gatiss fleshes out the narrative with a newly minted character (Fröken de la Gardie) and adds a very brief epilogue set in the modern day, but otherwise hits all the beats of the original story. In doing so, he retains James’ eerie atmosphere and this might well be the Gatiss entry that most accurately approximates the feel of the 70s Clark episodes, perhaps his most traditional to date. His direction is perfectly paced, never rushing (the story may be a tad too leisurely for some) and Sonja Huttenen’s photography conspires with Blair Mowat’s unobtrusive score to heighten the sense of something uncanny abroad in the Swedish countryside.

The locations (including Hall Barn Estate in Beaconsfield, familiar from the likes of The Crown (2016-), Gosford Park (2001), Downton Abbey (2010-2015), and Chariots of Fire (1981)) never convince us that we’re actually anywhere near that Swedish countryside and one suspects that lack of funds to travel abroad may have been another contributing factor to the BBC’s refusal to allow a 70s adaptation. It doesn’t cause too much of a problem, though it is often easy to forget that we’re meant to be in Scandinavia. It’s only a very minor quibble though in a very creditable attempt to film something which must have presented some serious issues. It’s a slow burn with no major shock at the end, but Gatiss’ embellishments (something tentacular clawing its way out of Magnus vault) enhance the creeping sense of dread already there in the story and if the mystery is bever actually resolved, as in the original (we never know what it is that Magnus brought back with him), that scarcely matters.

Gatiss has expressed a desire to keep making these Ghost Stories for Christmas, to do more James adaptations as well as to adapt other great ghost story writers (a particular favourite is E Nesbit’s Man-Size In Marble, the first ghost story he ever read) and more originals along the lines of The Dead Room (2018). On the strength of Count Magnus, the series appears to still be in good hands and one can only hope that he’s able to persuade the BBC of the value of this long-standing and much loved Yuletide tradition.