The Stone Tape
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The Stone Tape |
| Country of production | Great Britain |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1972 |
| length | 90 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Peter Sasdy |
| script | Nigel Kneale |
| production | Innes Lloyd for BBC2 |
| music | Desmond Briscoe |
| occupation | |
| |
The Stone Tape ( English ; "The stone tape ") is a British television film in the genre of horror and science fiction film based on a script by Nigel Kneale . It was first broadcast on BBC2 on December 25, 1972. The film is considered one of Kneale's most notable productions.
action
A research team of the electronics group's "Ryan Electrics" is moving into a newly renovated building work, an old Victorian mansion , whose foundations still from the Saxony time comes. Taskerland is named after the Tasker family, who apparently died out before the outbreak of World War II . The team is led by the arrogant and ambitious engineer Peter Brock. The management of the project is the responsibility of the older and deliberate Roy Collinson. The team is expected to come up with a groundbreaking invention to face the growing Japanese competition in the electronics sector. In particular, a medium is intended that can replace the magnetic tape .
Upon arrival in Taskerland, Collinson explains to the team that the main work space cannot be occupied because it is supposedly haunted and the construction workers are refusing to renovate there. This curiosity arouses the curiosity of researchers. The programmer Jill Greeley is the only woman in the group and Brock's lover; his wife is unaware of the relationship. Jill is a highly sensitive personality who already had a strange experience on arrival in Taskerland when two maneuvering company trucks nearly killed her in the car. She would like to leave Taskerland immediately.
When the research group investigates the alleged haunted room, Jill sees a young woman in late 19th century clothing who runs up a flight of stairs and apparently falls to her death. Except for Jill, however, the phenomenon is not visually perceived by anyone. Only the death scream of the stranger can be heard from the other researchers.
Collinson discovers in old documents that the 19-year-old housemaid Louisa Hanks was killed in the room in 1890. In addition, at some point the property was unsuccessfully exorcised . However, initial research with the local Vicar of the Anglican Church was unsuccessful because the archive was in a chaotic state. However, the vicar promises to keep looking for clues about the historical events. During a visit to the local bar , Peter and Jill learn that Taskerland was a food depot for the US Army during the war and that soldiers in the room in question said they noticed strange phenomena.
In the room, Peter senses the possibility of discovering a new storage medium for Ryan Electrics. But the experiments do not lead to clear results. Despite the use of state-of-the-art technology, it only turns out that although strange noises and the screams of "Louisas" are generally perceived, Jill is the only one who can optically perceive the phenomenon. An employee, on the other hand, does not even notice the noises. Both the visual appearance of the girl and her screams cannot be recorded with cameras and tapes. Peter suspects that the stone masonry works like a kind of tape recorder and has recorded earlier events acoustically . Jill, however, believes that only extreme emotional events are stored, which in turn can only be perceived by sensitive people.
In the bar, Peter and Jill also met the villager Alan, who in the post-war period of the early 1950s played with other boys in the building, which had been abandoned since 1945. Reluctantly, he is ready to return to the room. He says that he and the other boys heard rats in the room at the time . Peter does not believe this interpretation for him, since in his opinion a country dweller could very well distinguish between noises produced by rats and strange acoustic phenomena. Eventually Alan reluctantly admits that one of the boys named Jack “went nuts” and has been in psychiatric custody ever since.
Jills enters all the data about the experiment into the computer. Suddenly the computer starts to write on its own. Apparently Louisa's ghost tries to get in touch with Jill, which horrifies one of the employees to exclaim "It's in the computer!"
When Jill tells Peter that she suddenly has the feeling that the "tape" has been erased, Peter stops trying. Instead, a fierce competitor moves in unexpectedly, who is supposed to develop an “intelligent” washing machine to stand up to the Japanese . The vicar appears surprisingly. He found evidence in old church documents that an exorcism did not take place until 1892, i.e. two years after Louisa's death, but as early as 1760, when Taskerland was not yet built and only ruins existed. Jill now suspects that the "stone tape" can be played over again and again like a magnetic tape. She believes that the young girl's death in 1890 overridden an older recording that may be thousands of years old.
Peter thinks Jill is mentally irritable and urges her to take a two month vacation. Before that, Jill returns to the room. When she hears a strange grumble that has replaced “Louisa's” screams, she flees back into the hallway, but is driven back into the room by two red “eyes”. She is attacked by greenish shadows and flees onto the stairs, from which Louisa also fell to her death. While Jill believes the stairs continue, she falls fatally to the ground at the open end.
When Peter re-enters the room after the investigation is over, he hears Jill's voice uttering his name at the moment of her death.
Production notes
Kneale was asked by the BBC2's chief dramaturge, Christopher Morahan , in mid-May 1972 to write a screenplay for a Christmas television film. Kneale was ready to write a ghost story common for the Christmas season , but combined it with elements of science fiction. In September the script was completed and was replaced by the original title Breakthrough ( breakthrough ) the new title The Stone Tape .
The filming began on 15 November. The Horsley Towers in East Horsley / Surrey served as a prop for Taskerland . Filming was completed in early December. It was first broadcast on December 25th and was watched by 2.6 million viewers. The screenplay was published by Kneale in 1976 in an anthology entitled The Year of the Sex Olympics and Other TV Plays . Jane Asher in the role of Jill had a child role in Kneales science fiction film Shock in 1955 .
criticism
"[...] arguably the most creepy drama ever seen on television."
"[...] one of the masterpieces of genre television, an authentic alliance of mind-stretching science fiction concepts with horror and suspense plot mechanics."
Lore
A first DVD edition was released in 2001 by the British Film Institute . A new edition of “101 Films” appeared in 2013. Both editions contain an interview on the production history with Kneale and the film critic Kim Newman.
literature
- Lez Cooke: British Television Drama: A History , 2nd ed. London (British Film Institute) 2015. ISBN 978-1-84457-623-4 . ISBN 978-1-84457-624-1 .
- Roger Fulton: The Encyclopedia of TV Science Fiction , 3rd ed. London (Boxtree) 1997. ISBN 0-7522-1150-1 .
- Andy Murray: Into the Unknown: The Fantastic Life of Nigel Kneale , London (Headpress) 2006. ISBN 1-900486-50-4 .
- Nigel Kneale: The Year of the Sex Olympics and Other TV Plays , London (Ferret Fantasy Ltd) 1976. ISBN 090499709X .
- John R. Cook / Peter Wright: British science fiction television. A hitchhiker's guide , London (IB Tauris) 2005. ISBN 1-84511-047-1 . ISBN 1-84511-048-X .