GrimPrecise I'll tell you why so serious

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

bob the moo My years at IMDb have not been in vain and if I have been taught one thing by fellow user Theo Robertson, then it is that I should give Nigel Kneale a bit of my time when the chance arises. So it was that I found myself watching this film, one I knew absolutely nothing about apart from that it was some form of ghost story and that it had been written by Kneale. The plot sees an electronics firm moving into an old Victorian building to start a project looking at a new recording method that is beyond tape (utter sci-fi of course). When one of the team spots a ghost, project leader Peter Brock decides to investigate and more.From the very start of the film one of the main barriers to it is evident – it has not aged well. It is true to say that good stories do not age, however this is not the same as presentation, performances, wardrobe, effects, dialect and so on – mostly these things do date and not well. Sometimes the dating effect means it can be unintentionally comic to those watching years later, having seen these things many times and be spoofed as well; so for example the visual effects to convey panic and fear in Jill in the opening scene in the car park is a little bit like this and it is a problem that it never wholly will get away from for many viewers. That said, the material mostly doesn't date and the ideas are well presented, interesting and a little bit spooky – they didn't chill me as much as I had wanted but again this was down to most of the scenes on this side of the film using dated special effects where I would have preferred more to have been done with atmosphere and tone (as was the case in the more effective parts of the film).The cast are a little bit BBC-workshopy. Bryant tends to project and I wasn't helped by how much he reminded me of John Sessions in terms of performance and looks. Asher is better which is good as she has more convincing to do – visual and camera effects aside, she is really good here. The supporting cast are mostly so-so, with some odd performances and characters. One thing common amongst all the characters was the very dated language – a lot of it surprisingly racist in regards put-on accents and sentiments; I understand that it is "of its time" but again this is one aspect of the "dating" that was a barrier to me watching it over 40 years later.Despite the problems with it, the ideas and atmosphere just about make it all stay together and work. It isn't as good as it should have been and it is impossible to say that the dating of the film has had no impact on its effectiveness, but it is still decent enough to be worth a look.

TexDoc Not an easy movie to find, but finally got to watch a copy. Enjoyable overall, though fairly low budget....felt like I was watching an old Avengers TV show. (spoilers to follow) However, very early in the film I was immediately reminded of The Haunting of Hill House (a much better film). We have: 1)a female lead who is clearly unbalanced, somewhat hysterical (though the subtleties of Hill House are replaced by crawling on the floor crying), 2) a group of people studying a "haunted" location, 3) some of whom are more "sensitive" to the events than others. While that may seem a bit of a reach, the ending (the woman dies and becomes part of the haunted location) fairly well closes the case. Once you then see the parallels, some of the charm of this film fades. Again, not bad, not great, interesting....but a poor shadow of Hill House. IMHO

neunomad I've been looking forward to seeing The Stone Tape ever since I happened across it in an IMDb list that enthusiastically promoted the telemovie as a high point in British Television horror. I had only good expectations when I realised Nigel Kneale wrote it... I very much liked the various Quatermass miniseries/films.I don't dispute that this is a very good British television horror/sci- fi production. It's really quite good, but it hasn't aged very well. There are lots of little things that work against The Stone Tape and the atmosphere the movie is pushing. The sets are at times too obviously constructed on a sound-stage, and evoke Doctor Who rather than victorian haunted house. There is also an unsettling theme of misogyny and sexism that runs through the narrative but is never seriously dealt with or reprimanded - it's something that also makes the whole setup incredible, since it's hard to believe that this group of men who carry on like they're on a boy's school outing are seriously professional audio and electrical engineers who are trying to challenge "the Japs'" and their technology companies. Overall it's hard to find anybody to like or care about in the story. Jill is somewhat like-able, but she is all too incredibly frustrating the way she is written as a woman who seems to be overly dependent on men...Unfortunately for those looking for a scare, the mix of science fiction and ghost mystery works to the detriment of anything really scary... The way the sci-fi is worked into the ghost story is interesting, but at the cost of it completely eliminating the possibility of truly scaring the audience.If you're not still stuck in the 70s this will be underwhelming... but it is still appreciable as a product of its time.

Paul The writer who conceived this masterpiece, Nigel Kneale, is the most brilliant living writer of supernatural fiction. Were it not for the fact he has mainly written TV scripts, he would be hailed as the new Algernon Blackwood.This BBC TV drama from the early 70s is one intelligent, subtle and utterly disturbing. It is very well directed and (mainly) well acted but it is the power of Kneale's genius as a writer that elevates it to greatness.I understand it is soon to be (or is now?) available on a BFI DVD, well worth seeking out.