Since 1968 the BBC had periodically broadcast short made-for-television supernatural thrillers, most often based on stories by M.R. James. It started off with Whistle and I’ll Come to You, directed by Jonathan Miller, which aired as part of the Omnibus series in May 1968. Its critical success, not to mention popularity with viewers, led director Lawrence Gordon Clark to devise A Ghost Story for Christmas. That series ran annually from 1971 to 1978, with revivals attempted every few years from 2005. In 2010 the BBC returned to the series’ original inspiration, with a new adaptation of Whistle and I’ll Come to You written by Neil Cross, with direction by Andy De Emmony and starring British film legend John Hurt.

The BBC has a long history of airing horror during the Christmas season: not just A Ghost Story from Christmas, but The Stone Tape (1972), Schalcken the Painter (1979), The Box of Delights (1984), and others. Even commercial rival ITV occasionally gets in on the act, with productions like The Woman in Black (1989).

Whistle and I’ll Come to You stars Hurt as James Parkin, a retired academic who admits his wife – who has advanced dementia – to a hospital for ongoing care. He then goes on holiday to a seaside hotel, despite enormous guilt, where he begins to be stalked by a ghostly apparition. The episode co-stars Gemma Jones, Leslie Sharp, and Sophie Thompson.

The immediate and most peculiar thing about the film is that, despite its title, it completely disregards the plot of both Miller’s 1968 film and the James story upon which it was based. Both of those tellings focused on the protagonist finding an ancient Templar whistle buried on the beach. In this version, Parkin uncovers an old wedding ring and his subsequent experience feels considerably more personal, paranoid, and claustrophobic. While the film claims to adapt M.R. James, it does not actually adapt James at all.

It also turns out to be a rather long, hollow experience. The majority of A Ghost Story for Christmas films hover around the half-hour mark in length, however De Emmony stretches this instance out beyond 50 minutes. It is a stark, lonely production as well, with a core cast of only four – and that includes both Parkin’s comatose wife and her nurse. In practice, Whistle and I’ll Come to You consists of an awful lot of John Hurt on empty beaches or in silent hotel rooms looking vaguely distressed. The supernatural scenes are as effective as most, but they come so few and far between that it the film struggles to sustain viewer interest. Hurt is wonderful, and seems to perform in an effortless, charming manner, but he honestly has very little to actually do.

If it was savagely cut down to a mean 30 minutes, Whistle and I’ll Come to You would be a tense, effective, little horror story. Saddled with the extra running time – it is the longest of the series by far – and it simply tests one’s patience. Without following the story of its principal inspiration, it genuinely boggles the mind: why this version, and why that length?