As the season of goodwill approaches, a darker tradition stirs beneath the tinsel and carols. For decades, British television has counter-programmed the festive cheer with a spine-tingling array of ghost stories, perfect for long winter nights. The latest entry is the BBC's annual Ghost Story for Christmas, a Mark Gatiss-helmed adaptation of E.F. Benson's The Room in the Tower, starring Tobias Menzies and Joanna Lumley.
A Haunting British Tradition
The festive schedule has long been a welcoming home for tales of the supernatural. The season, with its long nights and ancient folklore, lends itself as readily to the shrouded and malign as it does to the baubled and mulled. But which televised Christmas chillers stand out as the most effective and enduring? We have compiled a list of the ten finest, a journey into televisual terror that spans over fifty years.
The Definitive Festive Frights
Kicking off our list is A Warning to the Curious from the BBC in 1972. This masterpiece, the second of the BBC's original Ghost Stories for Christmas strand, follows an amateur archaeologist, played by Peter Vaughan, who unearths a Saxon crown and awakens its undead guardian. Its atmosphere of creeping dread is quintessential.
From 2016, Inside No. 9: The Devil of Christmas offered a brilliantly nasty pastiche of 1970s low-budget horror anthologies. Written by and starring Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, its climactic twist proved deeply unsettling, subverting festive expectations with grim precision.
In a different vein, the BBC's 2000 Ghost Stories for Christmas saw Christopher Lee reading the works of M.R. James. Far from dull, the sparse production focused on Lee's magnificent, sepulchral presence, making his vast head a monument of Gothic horror in itself.
The same year brought The League of Gentlemen Christmas Special, where the residents of Royston Vasey shared horrific tales with an unimpressed vicar. It blended the show's signature black comedy with festive folklore to chilling effect.
Classic Adaptations and Unexpected Chillers
Few adaptations are as iconic as ITV's The Woman in Black from 1989. This adaptation of Susan Hill's novel, featuring a shrieking Victorian phantom, left a generation of viewers utterly petrified, its imagery forever burned into the memory.
For family-friendly fear, The Box of Delights (BBC, 1984) remains a BAFTA-winning benchmark. This magical series mixed pagan myth, puppetry, and a seething performance from Robert Stephens as the villainous occultist Abner Brown.
Charles Dickens' The Signalman, adapted by the BBC in 1976 and starring Denholm Elliott, is a masterclass in claustrophobic terror. Set in a lonely railway cutting, it deals with premonitions of death with mute, escalating horror.
An unlikely entry is Bergerac: Fires in the Fall, the 1986 Christmas special. Detective Jim Bergerac, played by John Nettles, faced deranged arsonists and graveyard phantoms in a surprisingly effective Jersey-set mystery.
Nigel Kneale's The Stone Tape (BBC, 1972) remains uniquely disconcerting. Its story of scientists investigating a 'haunted' room where traumatic events have been recorded in the very walls is a classic of psychological and supernatural horror.
Topping many lists is Whistle and I'll Come to You from 1968. Jonathan Miller's adaptation of M.R. James's story, starring Michael Hordern, is the quintessential winter ghost story. Its panorama of existential unease, social awkwardness, and an unforgettable spectral bedsheet creates an atmosphere of unparalleled dread.
The Enduring Appeal of the Christmas Ghost
This collection demonstrates the rich and ongoing tradition of festive fear on British television. From the classic MR James adaptations of the 1970s to the modern revivals led by Mark Gatiss, these stories tap into a deep-seated need for a chill that counters the seasonal warmth. They prove that Christmas, a time of storytelling and reflection, is also the perfect moment to confront the things that go bump in the long, dark night.
