The Stone Tape (1972)

Ghosts on Tape - scary as hell

A group of corporate scientists, looking to develop a new medium for recording data, confronts the ultimate message - the horror of death itself. Led by Peter Brock (a womanizing corporate scoundrel who knows how to rouse his team's spirits) the scientists of Ryan Electronics move into a 19th century manor to convert it into their new lab. They soon find that their new digs are haunted by a ghost with a limited repertoire - the scream of a 19th century chambermaid just moments from death. At first, Brock treats the ghost academically - a problem that he can throw his technical resources at. The potential becomes more lucrative when Brock's readings suggest that the phantom scream - detectable by human minds but not their machines - isn't so much a ghost as a ghostly recording somehow imprinted on the stone walls of an ancient room. Decades before the DVD and with VHS still on the horizon, Brock has discovered the recordable medium of the human mind.

Maybe.

Figuring out how the stone walls act as the flash memory of the soul will prove more difficult than Brock expects, taxing his crew to the limit. Most affected is Jill Greely, Brock's computer analyst and lover who seems to have the greatest sensitivity to the room's secret.

This was a great story, though it does have 2 big flaws. For those who remember author Nigel Kneale best for "Quatermass and the Pit", "Stone" offers a heaping of better-than-the-same. For those who remember that earlier story, there are some parallels - ancient memory embedded in artifacts, primal fears and the way that science and the supernatural can compliment rather than dull the most entertaining aspects of each other. (Kneale also winks at "Pit" - replacing the visionary Quatermass with a womanizing and profit-minded Peter Brock; instead of the bellicose Col. Breen, the scientists of "Tape" must confront a rival project for a computerized washing machine.)

The 1st big problem is that unlike Quatermass, there is no underlying theory of the "why" - this makes some sense given that the main characters are in it for the money, not the science. The BIG dénouement near the end of "Stone" seems forced. There's an idea that Kneale has about our deepest darkest fears being covered up, but the story seems to only haphazardly and lightly weave it into the realizations of the characters.

The other big problem is that "Stone" isn't that long. At about an hour and a half, there isn't much breathing space for the story's well-drawn characters and its chilling premise. Maybe I was spoiled by 3 hours of "Pit", but even thin serials of "Dr. Who" work their threads out over 6 episodes. The script dangles the scary prospect that the stone, like any tape, has more than one layer of recording. Unfortunately, this evokes the story's compactness - it too has layers covered over to fit 90 minutes running time.

WHY YOU MUST SEE IT
Great characters and a matchless appreciation of "the fear of fear itself". I can't get over how Brock is the anti-Quatermass - consistently selfish, guided by greed. When told that parts of the circa-1800's house might actually trace back to "Saxon times", Brock's terrified - simply because now he'll have to deal with preservationists, while ignoring the prospect that the hated room's supernatural anomalies may be older, darker and more powerful than he first realized. As beleaguered Jill, Jane Asher will break your heart. We've also got Collinson (Brock's right hand man - the script uses him to show the gradual erosion of Brock's authority) and Crawshaw (the washing machine visionary). We also see the stunted characters of the surrounding town - the dotty Vicar, a bartender still scarred by a prank he played on a friend involving the cursed room when both were children, and his wife who seems to have forgotten that she's too old to giggle like some WWII "good-time girl".

But most of all, "Stone" is unmissable as the perfect demonstration of how easily an artist can work chills out of you with a minimum of effects (none for gore). Shot on video, "Stone" has some surprisingly good camerawork, coupled with an excellent early-electronic score. "Stone" is a chiller that will remain unforgettable - right through its spinetingling end. October 17, 2007

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