A Child's Voice

A popular radio personality, renowned for his writing and reciting of blood-curdling horror stories late at night, receives a plea – via repeated eerie phone calls – from a child to discontinue his latest narrative. Intriguing but uninspired supernatural tale in the well-tried vein of BBC's popular TV series "Ghost Story For Christmas" – though not actually forming part of it, not least because of its relatively modern setting. The mainstays of the film are T.P. McKenna's central performance and its depiction of an era where cuddling up nightly to be terrified by a horror tale emanating from the airwaves was the order of the day; for the record, the story is told in flashback and narrated by Valentine Dyall. Interestingly enough, the concept of recurring entreating phone calls from a child in the dead of night was also used as a basis for menace in the first season of the revived DOCTOR WHO in 2005 in two consecutive episodes entitled "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances"!

The 70's seemed to be awash with Supernatural drama's/ TV plays like this. Such a great thing we can access almost all of them now-albeit in not so good quality on YTbe. This story is effective- the tension does build, and though most viewers will think of at least one obvious way the thrill at the end could have been heightened...it is well worth the wait. The only thing I can think of that is remotely like this now, in terms of quality and "single story" macabre is the truly excellent "Inside No.9" (With added humour).

This short spooky tale relies on the imagination of the viewer to scare , rather than the modern CGI of today. It is a well worked traditional Ghost story about a DJ of a radio station who broadcasts a horror story concerning a Magician who enlists the help of a child to perform the " disappearing " act on stage.

Each night the DJ Narrates a chapter of this story to the listeners as he sits in his darkened studio with just his producer in the control room. After the first nights broadcast , the DJ goes home to his nightcap but is disturbed by the phone ringing , and upon answering finds a child's voice asking him not to continue with the story as it is to scary.

Brushing this off , the DJ continues with his broadcast the following night, and again when he returns home in the dead of night , the same thing happens, only this time the child is more insistent.

This continues over the next few nights much to the annoyance of the DJ as he is getting rather scared by the child's chilling words and warnings of personal doom if the story continues , and is becoming more and more tormented as the story continues.

I am not going to ruin the story by giving away the ending , but this creepy tale is well worth watching as it is a well crafted and superbly directed entry to this Genre.

Traditional ghost story, with lots of voice over and a claustrophobic atmosphere. The version I saw on youtube was poor quality, with sound slightly out of synch.

The sequences with the telephone are eerie, although the second one was slightly marred by bad editing as the protagonist left the room to go to bed. The main character is a bit stuffy, but the acting is good from T P Mckenna.

Plenty of contrast in the light, but they could have had more fun with it. And some of the sound used reverb, which was effective.

Overall, short and enjoyable.