This short (thirty minute) film was probably made for British television in the tradition of the Ghost Stories for Christmas that they used to show on the BBC back in the '70s. It's in the same style as those and THE WOMAN IN BLACK in that the horror is mainly off screen, understated and achieved through the use of sound rather than visual effects. The low budget is evident but in a way this enhances the horror and gives the viewer an in-your-face film that makes you feel like you're part of it.
The film is set in one location, an old cottage, which is persistently buffeted by howling winds on the outside. These winds continue for the entire film and subtly, they add greatly to the tense and suspenseful atmosphere, which is so thick that it's sometimes hard to watch. Basically it is the sound track which achieves most of the horror in this movie, with long periods of silence which help to build the tension and unsaid power of the situation. What little music there is, is sufficiently spooky. There is a deceptively slow pacing which ceaselessly helps to maintain the tension; I'm sure most viewers will be acquainted with the original story by W.W. Jacobs so the fore-knowledge of the outcome also works in the film's favour, and as in most real-life situations, the wait for an event to occur is probably worse than the event itself.
The acting on the parts of Patricia Leslie and Alex McAvoy is impeccable; Leslie convinces as the grieving mother desperate to have her son back, while McAvoy puts in a superb and subtle performance of anguish and resignment in which he does most of his acting through his facial expressions. The supporting cast members, although briefly seen, are fine. The finale is genuinely nerve-shattering with a persistent knocking on the door signalling the return of the mangled son; thankfully we never actually see him (doing so would, of course, dispel the terror) but the final shot of a slowly closing gate is about as powerful and perfect as you could get for the ending to this story. What this lacks in running time it certainly makes up for in the evocation of a constant fear which lasts the full thirty minutes and even in some of the quieter moments. Thankfully, too, there is no extraneous material added and this sticks to the story very well; padding out to feature-length would have been disastrous as this is the perfect format for the adaptation.
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